


Become the Void

by EvilFuzzy9



Category: Naruto
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, Consensual Underage Sex, Drama, Eventual Harem, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Harems, Military Training, Minor Character Death, Multi, Ninja, Nudity, Original Character Death(s), Slow Build, Threats of Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-03-20 10:31:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 26,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3646995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilFuzzy9/pseuds/EvilFuzzy9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Many sagas and epics have followed the rise and fall of men like Naruto Uzumaki or Sasuke Uchiha, but this is not one of them. No, this story is about a rather unlikelier hero: a boy who in many tales would be closer to a villain. </p><p>A boy named Zaku Abumi. </p><p>[Zaku x Harem,  for Sokka The Man]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Child Aware of Emptiness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SokkaTheMan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SokkaTheMan/gifts).



His earliest memories were of filth and gloom, and loneliness. An impression of fear, of palpitations and shaking hands, cold sweat slicking his palms, and a desperately gnawing hunger which drove him to duck into the nearest alley with his prize as an angry shopkeeper pursued him, shouting threats and abuse.

It was the emptiness in his belly, the giddy fluttering in his chest as he curled into a ball amongst filth and garbage, clutching an ill-gotten apple or loaf of bread to his emaciated bosom. Unwanted, uncared for, he had been his own sole provider, stealing what he could to feed himself. It was a hard life, barely subsisting from day to day, and he had no time to think of grander things.

Some orphans, some of his fellow street urchins, dreamed of finding homes, of being taken in by kind families or wealthy benefactors, of stumbling blindly into an easier life, but he was not one of them. Delusions could not fill an empty stomach, he knew, nor could hopes shelter one against the wind and rain. He gave no thought to the future, for what could it bear him but still fiercer cold and yet deeper hunger?

Zaku had never been a dreamer, even in the earliest days of his youth. Some children clung to empty hopes and false promises, maintaining a spark of innocence and naïvety even against the harshest environments... but those types couldn't make it long on the streets. He was more intelligent than that, and he had long ago discarded such burdens, such illusions. He thought only of his next meal, of the here and now.

So he had lived his life, in his earliest years, small and weak but determined to survive. Starvation and exposure had broken better men than he, but Zaku endured the hardships of his youth: he survived it all, if only by the skin of his teeth. He was lean and unlettered, unloved and unwanted.

The streets made him hard, determined and stubborn. He taught himself how to avoid notice, how to melt into the crowd and erase his presence. He studied people's blind spots, learning through trial and error how to slip unseen through the markets, how best to sneak food from a stall, or swipe money from a traveler. Sink or swim, do or die.

All until the day he was finally caught – but not by a pocket-picked merchant, or the keeper of a pilfered kiosk.

_"Is this all you want from life, child? To die in the streets, beaten and bruised for stealing a piece of half-rotten fruit?"_

Even if the man's words had not been as such, those eyes had conveyed a world of meaning to Zaku, their depth piercing him through as though reading the deepest secrets of his existence. The man spoke to him, but not to berate and abuse him, no. The man looked at this scrawny, half-starved orphan, gazed into eyes filled with a mixture of fear and defiance, and saw the hint of something worthwhile.

_"Come with me, boy. Follow me, and find your purpose in this world. Serve me, and find a reason to live."_

Those eyes said as much as that silver tongue, something in their slit-pupiled depths filling Zaku with a resolve he had never before known. The man held out a hand, silently offering to pull the boy back onto his feet.

He accepted that hand, and all it entailed. This was a turning point in his life.

Now, Zaku Abumi was just one of many lonely or desperate souls to throw in their lot with Orochimaru of the Sannin, one out of scores of hungry youths to choose a life of servitude in the snake summoner's name. Purposeless, misguided, with nowhere to go and no one to miss them when they were gone, they were easily inspired by the dark charisma and silken words of that single, ambitious man.

Hunger was something they all shared, be it for something as simple as a hot meal, or for something loftier and more abstract, such as knowledge or power, or a reason to live. Lost and alone in the world, even the smallest gesture of kindness was enough to inspire their undying loyalty.

Orochimaru gave something to each of them, whether food, or shelter, or a smallest token of his power. Zaku had never before had a place to call home, and Orochimaru gave him this, taking him away from the filthy streets of that unforgiving city and spiriting him away to a facility in the countryside of the Land of Rice Paddies.

It was just one out of many laboratories, a gloomy subterranean complex built within natural limestone caves, but to Zaku it represented an escape from his old life, a chance to begin anew. In this underground fortress, he would find a new purpose, and his true calling. He would discard the weakness of boyhood, the shackles of a half-forgotten past, and become a man.

It would take hardship and toil like nothing he had ever experienced, but Zaku Abumi swore to himself, on the name of Lord Orochimaru, that he _would_ become a shinobi. That helping hand had been the first kindness ever shown to him by a cruel and indifferent world, and he would not let that boon go unrepaid. This resolve would be the only thing to lean on, the only support he would find in the trials to come.

He would become a great shinobi, and put the name of the Village Hidden in the Sound on every map in the elemental nations. Nothing would hold him back from repaying his debt to Orochimaru, and nothing but the man's word would restrain him from giving his life in service.

Zaku Abumi was no one special. Orochimaru had seen promise in him, but so had he seen promise in the fifty other youths who called this facility home. Few of them would survive their training, they were told up front. They would either break from being pushed too far, perishing for lack of true quality as ninja, for lack of the ability to harness their true potential, or die at the hands of their own classmates, stabbed in the back as part of a training exercise, forced to fight their so-called friends to the death in order to ensure that they discarded all unnecessary emotions.

Shinobi were tools. By their very nature they were meant to be interchangeable, disposable. But ninja of the Sound were expected to become something more, to cultivate individual skill, to grow strong and cunning, each of them in their own way and fashion. They were to survive and mature by their own grit and merit so that those who made it out of their training alive would be best equipped to serve the greater needs of their liege and village.

"Contradiction is the essence of a ninja," the Site Chief told them on their first day of training. "Ours is a paradoxical existence, one in which we are taught to survive no matter what, and yet also to give our lives without hesitation. Shinobi are valuable, even an idiot genin of the weakest village equal in worth to any adult militia man, yet we are disposable assets to be discarded at need if it means completing even the most menial and ignoble of missions.

"But it is not our place to question this state of affairs. Ask yourself never _why_ you are ordered to do something, only _how_ you can carry out those orders to the best of your ability. We shinobi are all, to a man, merely tools for our lord, Orochimaru. Do I make myself clear?

"From this day forward, you kids are soldiers in training, and if I or one of my assistants tells you to jump, the only question we expect to hear in return is _'How high, sir?'_ You will do as you are told, when you are told, promptly and without insolence. You will follow your every order to the letter, and commit your full effort to learning everything you are taught."

Thus were they thrown headlong into shinobi lifestyle, subjected to training straight from hell.

* * *

"Hai! Yah! Tsuoh!"

Sweat poured down aching bodies as fifty-odd youths ran through their daily kata, practicing the steps of basic taijutsu forms. The room in which they practiced was uncomfortably hot and stuffy, with little ventilation and scarcely any room to move. They shadowboxed in varying states of undress, skin red and splotchy and glistening with sweat.

It stank in that training chamber, a stench like death, and their bodies reeked of exertion and filth. For the past two hours they had run nonstop through the sets shown to them by their instructor, knowing by now what dire sorts of punishment would fall on their heads if they dared to halt before they were told. Boys and girls practiced together, ranging in age from five to fifteen. Many of the older and more sensible ones had stripped down to their smallclothes before even beginning, useless concepts such as modesty having long since been drilled out of their heads.

Zaku Abumi, aged roughly seven and a half, was breathing heavily and drowning in his own sweat. Muscles burned and stabbed with every slightest movement, his body so exhausted that even drawing his next breath seemed a dreadfully laborious task. His eyes stung, sweat pouring indiscriminately down his face, but he did not dare stop to wipe his brow. That older, red-haired girl was watching him like a hawk, sneering at his obvious discomfort and silently daring him to falter.

On his first day of physical training, Zaku had collapsed an hour in, along with several of the other new recruits. The presiding instructor had then hauled him and the other "weaklings" to their feet and informed them that if they could not even carry out these simple kata, they would simply have to serve as training dummies for the older students.

That sneering redhead, the most sadistic bitch he had ever had the misfortune of meeting, had visibly enjoyed beating him black and blue. She'd picked him out personally, drawling that he looked like the weakest of the lot, and that she would have the most fun seeing how far she could push his endurance. By the time that first day was over, Zaku was spitting blood and limping with ugly, dark bruises covering every visible inch of his body.

After that first day, only two more people had collapsed during training. Neither of those two were still with them. The silent threat of another session with their sadistic seniors was enough to goad everyone else into suffering past even the most painful and excruciating ordeals, fear for their own lives and well-being a great enough motivator to push them past their limits and uncover their second, third, and fourth winds day after day until it no longer felt quite so miserably hellish.

Six months of training, day in and day out. That was how long Zaku had been here. Six long, torturous, horrible months.

It was hard to believe he had already been here that long, and in another way hard to believe that it had _only_ been that long. Six months in, and he could only dream of the day his training would be finished, when he could accept his headband as a shinobi of the Hidden Sound and leave this secret circle of hell disguised as a so-called "academy" behind for good.

He clenched his fists a little more tightly, gritting his teeth and searching his gut for that hidden reserve of strength as his muscles began once more to flag and falter. His arms twitched even as he continued his rhythmic, mechanical punching, threatening to give out on him.

Inhale. Exhale. _Breathe_.

A sensation of something like relief spread out through his limbs, the pain numbing, and he found his arms once more moving with a semblance of their proper strength. Beyond the limits of flesh alone, he forced himself to persevere, feeling the mocking gaze of that coldhearted bitch Tayuya between his shoulder blades.

His gut twisted, a hot feeling rising into his throat, and he gnashed his teeth. It flared inside him, the guttering of a small candle rising for a moment into the blaze of a torch. Strength flooded his muscles, and he redoubled his efforts.

"Hah! Hah! Hah!" Zaku grunted out repetitive _kiai_ with every punch, shifting his weight into the stance of the next set, snapping a leg up and punching twice, then kicking sideways with his other leg, before alternating.

He could feel the presence of something other than his muscles enabling his limbs to continue moving through the forms, a power their instructors spoke of, and their seniors arrogantly displayed at every opportunity. _Chakra_ , they called it, a well of strength that existed within every person, their physical and spiritual energies twisted and blended into something greater than the sum of its parts.

Zaku grinned, feeling a thrill surge through him. It was intoxicating, a rush that nearly overwhelmed the sensation of sore, fatigued muscles, fueling his movements past the point where his body ought to have given out. He felt something like pride at how easy it was getting to reach into himself and find this power, though he still could not call upon it at will, not like the older kids could.

He still had to push himself to his mental and physical limit before he could feel that energy in his gut, before he could find the clarity and resolve to reach inside himself and pull it out. Some of the older kids claimed they could use their chakra without even having to think about it, and Zaku found this a little hard to believe.

Next to him, a boy about his own age went through the same kata with obvious ease. Despite the bandages covering most of the other boy's skin, his movements did not appear the least bit hindered, and it didn't look as though the heat was bothering him at all. There were a couple real weirdoes like that among the fifty some kids, but this guy really took the cake.

"Tsui! Toh! Deyaah!"

In front of Zaku, a girl with short black hair and a normally pale face looked red as a beet, panting audibly as she struggled her way through the kata. She looked dreadfully tired, sweat pouring down her skin, and if she and Zaku were a few years older he might have felt strangely appreciative of how she looked in just her smallclothes. As it was, however, he felt nothing but a touch of schadenfreude at the way she was so obviously flagging, although he did give her some credit for continuing to perform the kata even despite looking ready to drop dead on her feet.

Dimly, he recognized this girl as having received a rare bit of mild praise from an older student for her apparent ingenuity with some bell and needle trick she'd shown off in a recent bukijutsu class. Supposedly she was one of the more promising students their age, but he didn't see it.

He glanced back at the bandaged boy, the one who looked like nothing so much as a mummy. That one, he remembered, had also earned some recognition in a number of different classes, both practical and academic. Apparently he was something of a genius, but Zaku still couldn't get over how ridiculous the guy looked in all those bandages.

Absently, he tried to recall their names. Ginsuke and Totsuka, wasn't it? Or something like that, at any rate.

...or maybe he was thinking of that weedy kid with the scar on his chin, Shinsuke, and that quiet little ogre of a lad, Toshizo? He wasn't sure. He hadn't bothered to learn too many names – Zaku wasn't so naïve as to think he was here to make _friends_. Those two could have been call Thing Touchy and Toes Painter, and it wouldn't have made any difference to him.

He was here for only one reason, and that reason was to get strong enough to serve Lord Orochimaru. To repay the debt he owed.

His name was Zaku Abumi, and this was going to be **his** story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This probably is the first M-rated fic I've written in quite a while that hasn't been just a thinly-veiled pretense for smut... that I can think of off the top of my head, at least. But this is actually a serious fic with something like a genuine plot (albeit more like a jumbled collection of half baked concepts at this point), and probably the first harem fic I've ever written PERIOD that hasn't been
> 
> a.) pure smut
> 
> or
> 
> 2.) a borderline parody.
> 
> But, yeah. You know all of those fics where a character (usually Naruto) gets all kinds of power ups, becomes virtually unrecognizable, and indiscriminately bones every "available" female (or male, though that's a lot rarer) character that the author finds even remotely attractive?
> 
> Well, this probably won't turn out too much like one of those. But it's definitely a fic about Zaku Abumi eventually becoming a major player in the ninja world, and he will almost certainly wind up shipped with at least a few Sound Village ladies.
> 
> Dedicated to Sokka The Man, formerly FlashWally22. Since, y'know, this fic was his idea.
> 
> Updated: 3-30-15
> 
> TTFN and R&R!
> 
> – — ❤


	2. Drills in the Dark

Quarters were cramped and crowded in the student dormitory. Sparsely furnished and packed with spartan bunk beds like a tin of anchovies, the natural limestone walls were only minimally hewn and smoothed to make their ostensible living space straight and symmetrical. Insulated wires were pinned to the ceiling, running over the stumps of circumcised stalactites, hooking up a row of dimly flickering light bulbs to one of the lower priority generators in the facility.

It had the semblance of a half-finished construction site, a perpetually damp and mildewy rat's nest thrown together with no care for aesthetics, convenience, or modesty. There was only one dorm for trainee ninja in the whole facility, with no dividers for age or gender. Most of the beds were shared by at least two people, hot bunking between meals and training sessions, and privacy was so far down the list of concerns that they weren't afforded so much as separate showers or changing rooms.

Every aspect of their lifestyle was in some way intended to condition or desensitize them. They were fed only every other day, with unspoken expectations for them to forage or pilfer most of their rations in order to avoid starvation or malnourishment, made to eat out of garbage cans on weekends, and personally kill and butcher the animals they got their meat from.

They were worked to the bone every day, driven to the point of physical and mental exhaustion by the grueling curriculum, and permitted only cold, thirty second showers on a bi-weekly basis. Instructors and older students periodically assailed them with verbal abuse and beatings for the slightest misstep or faux pas, seniors actively encouraged to haze and torment their juniors in just about every way they could imagine.

This was not a positive, supportive, or forgiving environment. It was the exact opposite of anything decent or pleasant, a veritable hell on earth where they were endlessly bombarded with countless sisyphean tasks, with degradation and humiliation intended to break them down to the most basic elements, a crucible in which they were deprived of virtually every human right and privilege until such time as they had proven themselves worthy of being treated even half as well as livestock kept caged and made to wallow in filth their whole lives, force-fed with a slurry of grains and their fellows' remains until finally fat enough for the slaughter.

By all conventional measurements, had Zaku stayed on the streets his quality of life would have been vastly better. At the very least, as a filthy and unlettered urchin he had never been so _actively_ oppressed or abused. But, still, he stubbornly persevered through the horrid conditions, no matter how awful it got, obstinately soldiering on alongside his peers.

In the depths of shared misery was forged both an iron sense of camaraderie, and yet also an ethos of _"Every man for himself."_ Zaku and the other students his age stuck together out of necessity as much as anything else, but they could also turn on each other at a moment's notice. The other kids were at once both his closest allies and fiercest rivals. If a situation required it, they could learn how to work together, but they also knew to expect a knife in their back the instant cooperation was no longer advantageous.

They could respect each other and commiserate over shared traumas, but they weren't friends – at least, not by any _civilian_ definition of the word.

None of them were so foolish.

* * *

Zaku grimaced and ducked behind a stalagmite, narrowly dodging a salvo of blunted shuriken. Iron rang on stone, noisily scratching the mineral growth. Moments later a shout behind him, a hoarse voice calling out to their teammates, goaded him to duck out from that hiding spot and continue moving lest they manage to corner him.

He shivered in the damp and dark, feeling a sticky melange of groundwater and sweat trickle down his back. A training shuriken whistled through the air as he darted past a smaller stalagmite, narrowly grazing the bare skin of his shoulder.

He hissed a curse and stumbled further into the darkness.

 _"I think I got him with that one,"_ he heard a girl shout – probably Paki, from the sound of her voice, a bit lower and harsher than that of her peers. _"He won't be able to use that arm for a bit."_

 _"Ah, you only just winged 'im,"_ another voice replied, this one belonging to sharp-eyed Jiro. _"Chief said it's gotta hit dead on for that stuff ter take effect."_

 _"Bah! I would have hit him square if it weren't for the lighting,"_ the girl grumbled, her words growing fainter as Zaku fled further away. _"...can hardly see a thing in all this darkness..."_

_"Hmph. You just haven't been conditioning your night vision enough..."_

There was the faintest metallic scraping and a distant rustle of cloth as one of them no doubt picked up a few of their fallen shuriken in gloved hands. Zaku shivered, naked in the murk and gloom, placing a hand on his arm where he'd been nicked. His fingers felt the touch, but his arm only felt the pressure on its deeper nerve endings. The skin was numb where the shuriken had grazed it.

He hurried ahead, keeping to the shadows and watching his step. Bare feet almost silently slapped the cave floor, a small form darting through the undeveloped parts of the cave network, the deeper and darker reaches of the system set aside for combat training and various pursuit and evasion drills, such as the one that was running now.

He was one of three marks set loose to flee through the caves, tasked with evading his pursuers for a full twenty-four hours. Six hunters in teams of two to three solo prey, accounting for nine of the ten trainees in their age group. And somewhere in the caves was the tenth student, acting out the role of a rogue ninja, armed with a pack full of body-binding seal tags: a wild card liable to attack either side on sight.

The marks and the rogue were naked, partly for ease of identification, partly so that the training shuriken coated with a cocktail of paralyzing agents could properly affect them when they were hit, and partly just to harden them up a little bit more through the exposure.

Zaku wasn't sure exactly how long this exercise had been going on for, but it felt like it had to have been several hours by now. He was wet and tired and sore all over, except for a couple of spots where he had been grazed by those paralyzing shuriken, which couldn't feel much of anything at all. By this point he was running on fumes and faint wisps of chakra, nothing tangible or substantial but fear of the penalty he would suffer if he failed this exercise (probably at that sadist Tayuya's hands) to keep him going.

He'd slipped away from the hunter pair of Ban and Shinsuke earlier, and by now had probably lost them completely. Jiro and Paki were somewhere in the distance behind him, but it wouldn't be too long until he'd given them the slip too. He was very good at escaping people who wanted to get a hold of him.

However, he had yet to see hide or hair of the third hunter team, Dosu and Kachan, and there was always a chance that Ban and Shinsuke might stumble across him again, which kept Zaku on his toes. He'd crossed paths with one of the other marks a while back – sullen little Toshizo, who had been clutching a rather sharp and bloody looking rock in his good hand – and could still hear a faint echo of Hyoko's unmistakeable _"Kyaa!"_ from somewhere in the distance, a hint that she had probably been caught.

The only individual he had not been able to account for at any point during this drill, so far, was Kin. The one acting out the role of an unpredictable rogue ninja.

So, _of course_ , Zaku would just so happen to run quite literally smack dab into the girl when he ducked through a narrow and scarcely noticeable crevice in the wall, both of them falling flat on their asses in the pitch black cranny.

"Gah!" he grunted, choking his voice back before he could let out any other sounds.

"Eep!" Kin softly yelped, the noise too quiet to carry very far.

Had they both been a few years older this might have been a cause for outward beflusterment while they secretly took a moment to enjoy the view they got of one another in their current state of dress (or lack thereof), and try to hide any signs that they may have appreciated the brief bit of contact their bodies enjoyed in that collision. But they were only seven, if going on eight, so all that either of them cared about right now was the fact that:

1.) the limestone karst topography was not a very nice thing to land on bare-assed,

and

2.) Kin's pack had fallen off her shoulders and spilled its contents all over the cave floor.

They realized the latter at the same moment.

Zaku scrambled forward, the fastest he had ever moved, snatching up a handful of the seal tags which stood in for weapons and jutsu on the rogue-player's part. Kin acted at the same moment, brandishing a seal tag in her own hand.

For a fraction of a second, they squared off. The sounds of Paki and Jiro's footsteps weren't too far away, and they were getting closer by the minute.

Zaku felt a bead of sweat trickle down his brow. His fingers clutched the seal tags like a lifeline, and he desperately struggled to pull up his chakra and channel it into the talismans. Tired and harried, he had both more and less difficulty summoning and molding his inner energies than usual.

Kin made the first move, Jiro and Paki sounding like they could only be a few seconds away. Her arm lashed forward, hand moving to clap the binding seal down on Zaku's chest. She leaned into the motion, committing her full weight to this single stroke.

Zaku made the next move. His own hand came up in a blur, brandishing the paper talismans with purpose, leaning back from her stroke. She had the initiative, but he was quicker. The timing of their respective attacks worked out to a stalemate, of sorts.

He landed a seal tag on her arm the same instant she clapped one onto his chest.

Both took immediate effect.

Kin Tsuchi and Zaku Abumi froze up. Binding fuuinjutsu scrit danced across their naked skin, a rudimentary web of glowing runes emanating from the charged and triggered seal tags. Glittering lines of writhing ink coiled around their forms, constricting arms and legs, locking up hinge and ball joints alike.

He fell backwards, his head smacking into stone. Stars danced briefly across a field of black, stabbing pain inching him over the brink of unconsciousness for a fraction of a second, before the SLAP of skin against skin, and the deceptive weight of Kin's slender form coming rigidly down on top of him, shocked him back to his senses. Her forehead slammed into his chin, probably knocking a baby tooth loose from the feel of it.

If Zaku couldn't hear Paki and Jiro practically right on top of them, he probably would have loudly sworn and hissed some very rude things at Miss Tsuchi. But as it was he held his tongue, and she also had the presence of mind to do likewise.

_Thuf, thuf, thuf._

Muffled footfalls passed by the opening in the wall, voices muttering to each other. The pursuing duo walked right past the crevice – Zaku himself had only spotted it by chance, and it could only barely be made out unless looked at from just the right angle.

_"Oi, are you sure he went this way? I can't see a thing."_

_"I'm telling you, I heard something from this direction. And look! The path branches up ahead. He can't have gone too far."_

_"Tch. Daft bint... which way d'you reckon he went, then?"_

_"Well, it_ _**sounded** _ _like the noise came more from the right..."_

_"Ugh. You have no idea where we're going, do you?"_

_"...oh, shut up."_

Their voices faded out of hearing. Zaku listened to the sound of their departing footfalls as he stared up at the cave ceiling, counting the grooves and ridges in the stone. He quickly busied himself with trying to forget the fact that Kin was lying stiff as board on top of him, which became easier as the seconds passed and he grew more accustomed to her weight.

It probably helped that the top of her head was just underneath his field of sight, midnight black hair nearly invisible in the corner of his eyes. The binding seal was quite thorough, and he could barely even crane his neck or turn his head.

...or was that a product of stiffness from his recent tumble?

Well, either way, after a little while Kin's weight atop him gradually faded from Zaku's conscious awareness. Dark patterns of the cave roof swallowed up his eyesight until all he could see were the subtle dips and whorls of eroded stone, plus jags and sharper ridges where seismic activity or some other forces had only recently cracked the stone walls apart from a single contiguous stretch of sediment.

With nothing to mark the passage of time but slowly burgeoning aches, the softly rhythmic and scarcely audible _drip... drip... drip..._ of water periodically trickling through unseen cracks in the stone, and the warm tickle of Kin's breath on on his collarbone, Zaku eventually lost all other sense of reckoning. Her skin felt clammy against his own, whenever he turned his notice hence, and the rise and fall of their chests seemed like the only movement either of them could manage.

It could have been minutes, it could have been hours. He had no clear idea. Silence was all-consuming, broken only by the sounds of his and Kin's bodies – the wheeze and rattle of breathing, the occasional gurgle of their guts – and the steady, unbroken _drip... drip... drip..._ of trickling moisture, droplets of water rhythmically plopping down onto the cave floor. The gloom was impenetrable.

After an immeasurable length of time, the idea came into Zaku's head to try and move. He could feel the sealing jutsu binding his movements, of course, but he didn't really know its limits.

Fingers twitched, budging infinitesimally. He felt the force of the seal straining against his digits, but there was a tiny bit of give. Was this a sign of the jutsu formula breaking down? He dimly recalled the instructor saying that the binding seals were temporary, but he couldn't remember exactly how long they were supposed to last.

His legs were stiff, still. He could shift his feet an inch this way or that, but that was all. He tried moving one of his hands, one that had gotten pinned between his and Kin's bodies. It was a small motion, scarcely more than a slight fidget of knuckles brushing against her chest, rubbing a little bit against a small nub, but Kin let out a startled yelp.

"Wha...? You just moved!" she hissed in an accusatory tone of voice, as though this was something utterly heinous. "How did you—?!" She stopped, then, as if distracted by sudden thought. "Wait..."

Grunting with effort, she lurched the slightest amount. Not enough to get off of him, but she was able to rise a few centimeters before falling back down. Zaku felt a twinge of hopefulness. This proved his own marginal movements weren't just a fluke.

The talismans' holds were clearly weakening.

"We're almost free," he murmured, his jaw feeling stiff as he spoke. Again he moved the hand between himself and Kin, experimentally trying to shift her body aside. Again, his knuckles brushed against her chest.

Kin yelped, _again_ , before craning her neck to fix him with a heated look. Even in the murk he could see the curious flush of her cheeks.

"Geh... Don't _do_ that," she mumbled, fidgeting uncomfortably. "Please. That's... a sensitive place. You aren't supposed to touch girls there, you know..."

Zaku stared disbelievingly down at her face. He could just barely make out her almost pained expression.

"Why? It's just a nipple. Guys have those too, in case you haven't noticed," he said bluntly. "What kind of ninja freaks out over something rubbing their _nipple?_ "

Kin was quiet for a moment. She shifted the tiniest bit on top of him, and he could feel her cheeks burn against the crook of his neck.

"You're a jerk," she grumbled. "Zaku, you stupid dummy. Just... stop touching me there, okay? It's weird. Do you want me touching _you_ on your private places?"

"Again, what's the big deal? You sure aren't afraid to aim down there when we spar," he observed. "I don't think I could care less, s'long as you aren't KICKING it."

Kin squeaked, such a blatantly girlish sound that almost Zaku could have mistaken her for _cute_ in that moment.

"Git," she muttered. "You dumb, stupid, ugly **git**. I don't even know why I..." She trailed off with an indignant huff, looking even more uncomfortable than ever to be effectively paralyzed on top of him. "I hate you, Zaku."

"Tch. Feeling's mutual, fatso," Zaku grunted. "Seriously, you must weigh a like a hundred bloody—"

Kin's head snapped up and clocked in the chin, interrupting Zaku and causing him to shout out one of the nastiest swears he knew, in pain. His curse echoed off of stone walls.

Moments later, another voice reached their ears.

_"Ah, did you hear that, Kachan? I think we've finally found our missing classmates."_

Cloth brushed against rock, after a few seconds, and Dosu Kinuta came into view, bending curiously over the still mostly rigid forms of Zaku Abumi and Kin Tsuchi. His one eye crinkled in something almost like amusement.

"Well hello, there. I see you two have been getting to know each other." He hummed. "Can you move? The drill's already over, so you might as well finish up whatever you were doing. I'll wait outside, if you need me to."

Kin and Zaku glared daggers at him.

"Just... just hurry up get the stupid seals off of us, will you?" the former grumbled. "We _can't_ move, yet. In case you haven't noticed."

"Yeah," muttered Zaku. "What she said."

Dosu shrugged.

"If you insist."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Aside from Shinsuke and Toshizo, the names of Zaku et al's fellow students all come from onomatopoeia. Ban, as in striking rock, Jiro as in staring, Hyoko as in stumbling, Kachan as in clank, and Paki as in the sound of ice breaking.
> 
> And, actually, even Shinsuke could be said to bear similarity to shiin, or the onomatopoeia for silence, though that's a bit of a stretch. So Toshizo is the only one of those names to break this retroactively established pattern.
> 
> Kin and Zaku's naked dogpile was not at all what I'd originally intended for this chapter – initially I was just gonna do a training montage, basically – but the idea planted itself in my head and refused to leave. So there you have it, I suppose.
> 
> If nothing else, it hopefully serves as an interesting way of establishing the dynamic between certain characters and providing something like a seed for future relationships. An innocent childhood misadventure in the setting of a hellish ninja boot camp.
> 
> Updated: 4-2-15
> 
> TTFN and R&R!
> 
> – — ❤


	3. 斬空波

Time passed.

Zaku continued in his training, in the brutal regimen of the Hidden Sound. He learned through experience how to fight, as did his classmates, struggling through pain and hardship every step of the way, stubbornly carrying on right alongside him.

They fought one another in brutal spars, armed with blades deadly and keen, apt to wounding and maiming. They pushed themselves to master the techniques they were taught, from basic stances and mudra to the most difficult ninjutsu and kempo. By the time they reached the age of ten, they had all either shown their quality or fallen to the wayside.

Zaku was one of the most obstinate ones, the most determined and diligent. He was not naturally gifted, or the fastest learner, but he was willing to go past his limits and endure whatever ordeals were necessary. He was ruthlessly competitive, unafraid of pain and weariness.

Some people had a native grace or cunning that could let them get out of a tricky situation untouched. He was not one such individual. If things went south, he would be one of the first to get slashed and beaten and battered and scarred. Some ninja would dodge a shuriken, or deflect it with a weapon. Zaku would take the dart head on, get riddled from wrist to shin with bloodied blades, yet still keep on fighting regardless.

And perhaps it was this quality that garnered him the attention of the scientists. Perhaps it was his ability to soldier on regardless of wounds or weariness that earned him the dubious honor of a spot on the lists for human experimentation.

* * *

_"Six out of ten. Better than last time."_

_"I still missed almost half of them."_

_"...Yes, that's true. It still wasn't very good."_

_Zaku twitched._

_"I'm getting better, though," he said. "It's just a matter of time before I'm hitting the mark ten times out of ten."_

_Shinsuke, a scrawny former street rat like Zaku, nodded absentmindedly and looked at his own training post. Several shuriken were clustered over a painted target, but only two had hit dead center. Three throwing stars lay uselessly on the floor, complete misses._

_Then he looked at Zaku's target. Three of the shuriken were on the bull's eye, three more within the two nextmost rings. Four were lying on the floor, half of which had glanced off of other shuriken already embedded in the post. Only two of his throws had completely whiffed._

_"Not_ that _good," Shinsuke said. A half lie._

_"Bah, what do you know?" Zaku grumbled._

_"That Dosu guy got nine out of ten, I heard," Shinsuke replied conversationally. "The last one hit one of the earlier shuriken and bounced off."_

_Zaku glared at his training post and grit his teeth. His hands curled into fists._

_"Stupid show-off," he muttered. "I'll show_ him _."_

_So saying this, Zaku retrieved his throwing stars and set up for another go at target practice. His expression was one of stubborn determination._

_Only when the first warning for curfew was called, several hours later, did Zaku finally tear himself from the range. His target post was scarred and battered and riddled with holes and gouges when he called it a night, ten blunted and dirty training shuriken embedded into the bull's eye._

_He was the last one to return to the cramped and crowded student dormitory._

* * *

The straps were tight over his wrists, the metal table freezing cold beneath him. A scientist and her assistant stood over him, in the operating room, gazing disinterestedly down at his youthful frame.

A tray to the side was laden with frightfully cruel and orcish looking instruments fashioned of gleaming stainless steel, surgical implements ranging from scalpels and forceps to bone saws and other nastier, more menacing looking tools whose names Zaku couldn't have pronounced even if he'd known them.

The doctor's assistant (a skulking, greasy-haired young man with sunken, beady eyes and a gaunt, sallow face) skulked in the shadows at the edge of sight, watching the doctor herself intently as she tested the give and tightness of the hard leather straps that bound Zaku to the operating table. Her eyes were dark and remote, seeming entirely dismissive of her subject as a human being as she went over a lengthy checklist. A sharp and angular face was cast in shadow as she leaned over her 'patient', her form backlit by the fluorescent lights overhead.

Zaku felt a twinge of fear when the woman produced a hypodermic needle connected to a long, thin, flexible tube – an IV, the end of which trailed off beyond his range of sight. Goosebumps rose up on his exposed skin, and he grit his teeth to keep from betraying his anxiety with any sort of vocalization.

"Koso," said the doctor, pausing to brusquely moisten and swab a spot on Zaku's arm. "Have you calculated the required dose of anaesthetics?"

Her assistant looked up, coke bottle glasses glinting in the dim light.

"Yes, sensei," he said in a nasal voice. "And I've calibrated the machine accordingly."

"Hmph. About time you did something right..." the doctor muttered, narrowing her eyes.

She pressed the tip of the needle down against Zaku's skin, causing him to tense for the briefest of moments. A little more weight was applied, and the needle broke through the dermal layers. The IV pierced his vein with a sharp stinging sensation.

Zaku blinked once, the pinprick of pain soon fading. He just laid there for a moment as doctor and assistant busied themselves with double-checking everything in preparation for the coming surgery.

"...do be careful with that jar, Koso. We will need that diluted cone snail venom to break down his _keirakukei_ long enough to keep the chakra network from rejecting the implants, and it was not easy to requisition even that much of the toxin for our experiments..."

"I see... Do you suppose there will be any trouble with the growth of osseous tissues compromising the pipes, sensei...?"

"There might be some, around the flex point... we will have to bore a tunnel through the capitate bones... probably need to shave off some of the scaphoids and lunates as well, and treat them to make sure the bone doesn't grow back. The pipe itself will be nestled between the radius and ulna, of course, so _that_ will be somewhat less of an issue..."

"...do you think these implants will be worth the trade off, then? He'll doubtless lose a fair deal of his manual dexterity with this surgery, after all... and I don't know if any amount of rehabilitation will be able help with his wrists..."

Their words became jumbled in Zaku's ears, and the doctor's answer was lost on him. His eyelids drooped and his body tingled. His head felt cloudy and light, dizzy and drowsy and muddled. Eyes fluttered shut, and heartbeat slowed.

He slipped into the realm of unconsciousness.

* * *

_"You're doing it wrong."_

_Zaku glared at the speaker, one of the kids around his own age. Kin, her name was. Fingers slipped between each other, aching from the repetitive contortions and adjustments they were being forced to undergo. He grimaced and untangled his hands, then threaded them together one more time._

_"I'm just doing what the graph shows," he sniped back, feeling testy as he glowered at his throbbing fingers._

_"Your thumbs aren't supposed to bend like that. They need to be straight."_

_Zaku grumbled under his breath. It wasn't anything polite._

_"Oughta just stick 'em up your nose..." he muttered. "There. That straight enough for you?"_

_The girl scowled, dark eyes flashing._

_"No need to get so snippy," she replied. "It's your own fault for falling behind the rest of the class. Sempai told me to come see what you were doing wrong, Zaku. She doesn't want any idiots holding the rest of us back."_

_His temple throbbed. He knew immediately to whom Kin was referring._

_"Tch, you're just kissing up to the hag," he hissed. "Why don't you marry her if you like her so much, eh? Perfect prodigy Tayuya-sempai and her dutiful little brown-noser!"_

_Kin bristled and flushed a deep red._

_"_ Fine! _" she snapped. "But don't come crawling to me when you can't manage any jutsu because you keep messing up your handseals!"_

_And then she turned on her heel and stalked off, leaving Zaku to his chart of hand signs. He made a face at her back, feeling no desire to act very mature, before sighing and reluctantly returning his attention to the task at hand._

_He formed the seal one more time._

_It still didn't work._

_Grimacing, he swallowed his pride and finally did as Kin suggested, consciously straightening his thumbs while he wove the hand sign. This time he actually felt something, an unmistakeable shift in his chakra as it automatically responded to the gesture._

_Zaku scowled, realizing that she'd been right the whole time._

_He could_ hear _the damn girl smirking at him._

* * *

Zaku stared down at his palms, at the small metallic protuberances, the two hollow cylinders sunken into his hands. He felt numb, and not just from the painkillers lingering in his system. Dark red blood oozed from the tips of the pipes, a slow bleed that left him feeling woozy from more than exsanguination.

His wrists were stiff, puffy and swollen; scarcely could he move them more than a degree this way or that. His arms felt leaden and lifeless in his lap. Faintly trembling fingers were gnarled and ill-responsive, twitching clumsily this way or that in response to his commands.

Grimacing, feeling acutely aware that once the anaesthesia finally wore off he would be left to deal with the doubtlessly considerable pain by himself, Zaku shakily grabbed a gauze pad and a length of bandage. Even just bandaging his hands was sure to be an exercise in frustration, but it had to be done.

He had chosen to undergo this procedure.

They'd told him the risks of the operation, and the stuff he'd have to go through even if it was one hundred percent successful. He may not have really understood all of it at his young age, and perhaps may not have had the full benefit of an adult's brain and experience to reckon and judge what was and wasn't a good risk to take, but he'd made this decision.

He had made his choice. Now he had to deal with the aftermath: with recuperation and rehabilitation, and with learning how to make use of these new surgical body modifications.

Zaku bit his lip in concentration, slowly but gradually wrapping the gauze in place.

"I won't fall behind, woman..." he grit his teeth. "I'll catch up to you, and I'll get even stronger than you... Sound Four, or whatever, I'll still kick your ass and get payback for all the crap you've put me through."

In spite of discomfort, despite the stiffness and unresponsiveness of his hands, he managed to form a fist, tightly clenched. Minuscule rivulets of blood trickled down from beneath the bandages.

"I'll get strong enough to beat you, even if I've gotta rip out every bone in my body to do it...!" he swore to himself.

* * *

_Tayuya sneered at Zaku, watching in amusement as he went once more through the requisite handseals._

_Ram, snake, tiger._

_"Clone Jutsu!" he grunted, gritting his teeth and straining. A vein popped out on his forehead, and he exhaled with a hiss._

_A translucent silhouette flickered behind Zaku, for a moment, before disappearing. He swore and broke the seal, panting and sweaty. Tayuya's smirk irked him, and he wanted dearly to wipe that smug expression off the girl's face._

_He knew, however, that she'd kick his ass if he tried anything. Despite only being two years his senior, Tayuya was considered the most talented trainee in the facility._

_"Pathetic," the girl said, leering at the sticky and redfaced Zaku. "You've been here a year, and you still can't even pull off a clone jutsu?"_

_"No one else in my year has, yet, either!" Zaku retorted defensively, glowering at the redhead. "And I'm still doing better than most of them."_

_"But not all of them," Tayuya finished. "Kin was able to get a flicker on her third try, and Dosu's have clear faces. If you don't pick up the pace, you'll fall to bottom of the class. Even Paki and Toshizo are pretty close to your position."_

_Zaku twitched at the mention of those two. Kin Tsuchi and Dosu Kinuta, two of the top three students his age. It never failed to annoy him, being reminded of_ them _. Sure, he was probably the_ second _best student his age, but Kin was only a little behind him in physical exercises (often overtaking him in more esoteric or cerebral courses)._

_More importantly, the difference in skill between him and Dosu was rather larger than Zaku would like. The so-called genius was well rounded and didn't have any real weak areas, and while the gulf was by no means insurmountable it still peeved him to come in second place to a goddamn_ _mummy_ _._

_Growling and shooting a black look at Tayuya, Zaku took a deep breath and flicked his hands through the seals once more._

Hitsuji, mi, tora.

_He felt his chakra twist and contort, spilling up from his core. It was a strange sensation, one he still hadn't gotten used to, like cool water flowing through his veins and a vise gently squeezing the inside of his skull. Not painful, exactly, but strange and vaguely uncomfortable._

_He continued to pull, somehow certain that he didn't have enough yet, tugging the chakra up out of his gut and letting it swirl and twist. Like a rope being woven from thin fibers, then tied into a knot to anchor a ship at dock. Something insubstantial folded in on itself again and again, twining into a thick and sturdy cord that could be used for any number of tasks._

_"_ Clone Jutsu, _" Zaku muttered._

_All at once, he felt something happen. It was half sensation, half awareness. Chakra was outside of him, twisting in the air and taking shape. Digital contortions molded his energies in arcane fashion, devising an illusory semblance of himself with nothing but willpower and ninja voodoo._

_Tayuya smirked, giving his newly created bunshin an appraising look._

_"Not bad," she commented. "It's even properly opaque. I'm impressed. That's very good, for a second rate loser." A slow, sarcastic clap. "Now you'll just have to do it over and over again 'til you can pull the jutsu off during a live fire exercise. Maybe_ _**then** _ _you'll actually be useful for something more than just standing there while I kick the crap out of you in sparring sessions."_

_Zaku glared hatefully at the redhead. She grinned right back at him, and it was all teeth._

_"See ya later,_ Crunchy _," she drawled with a condescending sneer._

_He felt his cheeks burn._

* * *

Snake, hare, horse, boar.

It hurt to move his hands, but he continued with the contortions. Sweat beaded on his brow, his arms still aching and throbbing even now, weeks after the surgery. Zaku's face was screwed up in concentration, his fingers stiff and sore and protesting each mudra he formed.

Hands clasped as if in prayer, palms pressed together and fingers intertwined. A stirring in his gut, something rising and swirling. _Mi_.

Index fingers pointed in either direction, hands sliding sideways into position. Thickening and surging, passing up through his chest. _U_.

Elbows straight out, index fingers forming the tip of a triangle. Moving sideways, down his arms. _Uma_.

Fists pointed downward, touching at the wrists. It was welling up, ready to explode. _I_.

Zaku bit his lip and swung his arms up and apart, aiming his palms at the wooden target in front of him.

" _Zankuuha!_ "

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And so Zaku gets his windpipe thingies, while also establishing a bit more of his character and interactions through flashbacks. And, actually, here's a bit of trivia:
> 
> Those flashbacks?
> 
> I originally meant for them to be the second half of chapter one, then the bulk of chapter two, respectively, but each time wound up finding that they wouldn't fit in either one. And so they're shoehorned here into the third chapter as flashbacks to break up the non-action of Zaku getting his surgical modifications.
> 
> Updated: 4-9-15
> 
> TTFN and R&R!
> 
> – — ❤


	4. Become the Void

" _Zankuuha!_ "

This shout was accompanied by a sound like a deafening gale, a roaring wind cascading through the atmosphere. A girl fell to the floor with a grunt and a curse, struck flat on the chest by an invisible wall of pressure.

Rip. Rip. Rrriiiip!

She lay still for a moment on the scratched, scuffed, and smoothworn tiles, groaning quietly and stirring only with some effort. Her eyes squeezed shut against pain, a hiss escaping her lips. Her shirt, a plain and dirty gray top barely one step up from rags and sackcloth, sported a handful of small tears from the attack.

She moved to stand, her face screwed up in frustration. Threadbare fabric protested this treatment, unable to endure the added stress, and the present tears widened and lengthened in a few spots, over areas where her body shifted or flexed as she rose once more to her feet.

Zaku watched his opponent with a dismissive gaze, sneering at her trembling hands and shaky stance. He advanced a single step forward, silently illustrating a slow and confident menace.

"Do you surrender, yet?" he asked. "You're so proud of that pretty face of yours, I figure you ought to drop out now before something... _happens_ _to it_."

He cracked his knuckles, crossing his arms and crouching low with fingers splayed and palms facing frontward. Air whistled from the small, hollow tubes which protruded ever-so-slightly from his hands, the small pressurized jets a mere fraction of what he could unleash.

The handful of spectators present watched silently as Zaku stared down his opponent, the twelve year old learner nearly ready to become a shinobi of the Hidden Sound. This was his final test, and the girl's final test as well.

Hyoko stumbled, but regained her balance at the last moment. Her shirt was slashed and torn by Zaku's ninjutsu, her body beaten and battered from repeated attempts at trying to break through his guard. A little older than Zaku, the curly-haired brunette was thirteen, and her stance was loose, her body swaying this way and that.

Zaku noticed, with a touch of bemusement, that two certain parts of the girl seemed to sway especially well in time with Hyoko's imitation _suiken_ stance. He glanced wryly at her chest, watching detachedly as torn and tatty cloth stretched over the bulge of two certain, curious parts seemingly unique to women. Hyoko was an early bloomer, as they phrased it, and she seemed to take a fair amount of pride in those presently ill-concealed globes of flesh – at least, when she wasn't bitterly bemoaning their presence during the more physical exercises.

Zaku looked once more into Hyoko's eyes, and he saw her smirking. Something in her expression bespoke a flash of inspiration, her eyes meeting his with a gleam of newfound confidence.

"Do you like what you see?" she teased, moving inexplicably into a pose quite unsuited for fighting. Her guard was wide open with a hand on her hip and another cupping her cheek, back bent and chest dangling.

Despite himself, Zaku caught a few glimpses of rosy flesh through rips in cloth, the swell of early-bloomed breasts curiously tempting.

Idly, he found himself recalling a past encounter with Tayuya, his former sempai and tormentor.

* * *

_"These are boobs," she told him condescendingly. "Tits._ _ My _ _tits, and not yours."_

_She stood over him, sneering down at his bruised and bloodied form, pausing to step on his wrist. Not hard enough to break anything, but it still hurt like a son of a bitch. Her eyes gleamed darkly, and her hands were cupped over the front of her shirt – over the lumps inside her top, the slight but still noticeable mounds of her chest._

_Zaku grimaced, glaring defiantly up at the redhead._

_"I'm sure you must be getting to a difficult phase," she drawled, continuing on. "You're at that age when you start to look around and really notice girls for the first time. You're feeling strange things you've never felt before, and you're starting to get curious about the differences between men and women."_

_Her eyes flashed, and her grin became a visible façade. Too many teeth, and no semblance of even a scalding warmth. For an instant her face looked like it had been carved from ice, and he felt the chill of her glance shoot up his spine._

_But then her smile returned, and her eyes danced with a sadistic amusement._

_"That doesn't mean you should go around touching your sempai's tits, though," she told him mockingly. "Even if this_ was _a full contact spar, there's no excuse for copping a feel like that."_

_Zaku growled._

_"I was... trying grab your arm, but you moved in closer and threw off my aim," he grunted, sounding as though he had repeated this explanation more than once already._

_"A likely story," said Tayuya loftily. "But you shouldn't lie, Zaku-chan. I can see it in your eyes, you know. How you're looking at these—"_

_She paused to move her hands and squeeze her chest in a way that made her endowments seem a little larger than they actually were, an action which caught Zaku's notice even despite his protests._

_"—when you think I can't see you. You want this, don't you? Little pervert. I can see the hunger in your eyes."_

_She smirked, and he snarled his response._

_"That's just because I haven't eaten all day."_

_Tayuya laughed and dismissed this protest with a wave of her hand._

_"Oh, don't try to deny it, little boy. There's nothing wrong with wanting to touch a nice pair of tits; I understand why you'd wanna try and sneak a feel."_

_Her smirk widened into a vicious, twisted grin, and she ground her heel down on his palm._

_"But you should have asked. And who knows? Maybe, just_ maybe _,_ _if you'd gotten down on all fours and begged like a dog, I MIGHT have let you touch them. Only for a second, but that's still more than you would ever get otherwise."_

_Zaku glared._

_"_ _**Fuck you** _ _," he spat impotently, unable to repay this humiliation any other way._

_She stomped on his crotch in response._

_Not hard enough to seriously damage anything, but Zaku wouldn't have been able to guess that from how it felt. His vision flickered for a moment, stars blurring across a black field, and he lurched. He could taste bile on his tongue. The pain felt worse than the sum of all the other hurts and injuries he had received from Tayuya as a result of his latest penalty spar._

_He couldn't help it. A whimper escaped his lips, tears pricked at his eyes._

_He curled up into a fetal position._

_"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Tayuya grunted, rather literally looking down her nose at Zaku. "Hmph. Pathetic. You're not even worth my time. Just a mangy stray who doesn't know when he's beat."_

_She stepped away and turned her back on him._

_"It's a shame I won't be around to keep put you in your place, anymore, but Orochimaru-sama has chosen to train me personally as one of his bodyguards. I doubt we'll ever see each other again, after today."_

_Zaku stared at her, weakly struggling to his feet._

_"Huh...?" he muttered. "The... hell are you talking about?"_

_"I'm leaving," she said bluntly. "And you'll be lucky to even survive your training, at_ _ this _ _level. We'll probably never see each other again."_

_She spun around then, for just a moment, and faster than Zaku could actually follow she did..._ something.

_His forehead tingled. It felt oddly warm._

_Warm... where her lips had brushed his skin, he realized a moment after it had actually happened. Zaku didn't quite understand, but he felt an odd... something... in his gut as Tayuya turned once more to walk away._

_He felt sick and confused, and strangely giddy._

_"Wh...wha...?"_

_"As punching bags go, you were actually halfway tolerable," she said, not bothering to look at him as she walked away. A moment later, then, spoken so softly that Zaku was sure he couldn't have heard correctly, it sounded almost like she added:_

_"...and I probably would have let you touch, if you'd just bothered to ask..."_

_Then she looked over her shoulder and saw him staring at her back, dumbfounded._

_She smirked._

_"What is it,_ Zaku-chan? _Do you like what you see?"_

_His face, quite inexplicably, went red hot at that remark._

* * *

Zaku frowned, shaking his head. He eyed Hyoko scornfully, realizing that she was attempting to SEDUCE him.

"That's just sad," he muttered. "If you know you can't beat me by fighting, you might as well surrender and spare yourself the embarrassment."

Hyoko smiled, batting her eyelashes at him in an almost comically over-the-top attempt at seduction. She pouted innocently, which was just about the fakest expression that ANY of them could try and pull.

She stood up straight, leaning back and swaggering towards him with an impractical amount of swaying in her stride.

"Ohh? Are you _sure?_ " she asked him coyly – and that much at least she actually did do well, Zaku had to admit, feeling his cheeks grow warm at her cute tone.

He raised a hand, leveling his right arm to aim dead center at Hyoko's chest.

"Yeah," Zaku said, swallowing. He made an effort to look Hyoko in the eye, schooling his face into a glare. "I'm sure. Come any closer, and my next shot'll strip you to the bone."

Hyoko smiled, not entirely seductive, _perhaps_ , but attractive and mischievous in a way that might have caused her opponent's heart to skip the slightest of beats.

"If you really want to strip me bare, all you have to do is ask," she said, once more batting her eyelashes. This time it didn't seem like such a laughable attempt. "No need to resort to such... _crude_ methods."

She was within arm's reach of him. She stepped in past his guard, smiling all coy and innocent, swaying her hips a little more convincingly. Her chest pressed up against him, and she draped her arms over his shoulder. Zaku stood there, his face dusted pink. He was frozen, seemingly hesitating to act.

Hyoko rested her face in the curve of his neck, embracing him tightly and just breathing in the scent of his body...

...planting a soft and breathy kiss on his collar, pressing herself close to him, rubbing against his body in a way that no thirteen year old had a right to be doing...

...smiling as she produced a kunai in her left hand, moving to press it into Zaku's back while he simply stood there in her arms, motionless...

...the blade coming within an inch of him, a centimeter, so close to drawing blood...

...only for a hard knee to snap up at the last possible instant, driving deep into Hyoko's gut. Her eyes went wide and she let out a gagging, choking sound. She retched and heaved, falling bonelessly off of Zaku, collapsing to the floor in pain.

Blood flecked her lips. She stared up at her should-have-been victim, a terrible fear in her eyes as she perceived all at once the failure of her last, most desperate gambit. _How could he have broken my illusion...?_ she thought. _He should have been rendered defenseless!_

"Yeah, nice try," Zaku said, peering disinterestedly down at his opponent. "But _no_. You almost had me there for a moment with that genjutsu, I'll admit, but in the end..."

He smirked, bringing his hands up and weaving them through a four seal sequence.

"...it looks like you underestimated me. I still win, bitch."

Hyoko gasped, wheezing and struggling to get back to her feet. Zaku stepped forward and stomped down on her ankles.

 **Hard**.

Bone crunched.

She screamed in agony, her mouth opening wide and eyes going wild, unable to actually see him through this additional pain. Her keening wail pierced the air, at least until Zaku stepped on her chest, pressing his weight down on her ribcage. Then she soon stopped screaming, her breath becoming short and labored under his weight.

Dispassionately, Zaku raised a hand and pointed it at Hyoko's head. At this range, in her state, there would be neither evasion or escape... nor any chance of survival.

His face was blank, wholly uncaring save for a slightest smirk of satisfaction at winning.

"See ya," he said, the only farewell his former classmate would be granted.

Chakra built up, before bursting out with enough force to crush solid rock. The other surviving students from their age group looked on dispassionately, uncaring.

Hyoko didn't even have time to flinch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Well, that got awful dark at the end. Guess I was compensating for the quote-unquote "fluffiness" of the Tayuya flashback, plus this is chapter four. It's only appropriate that this chapter should have the MC's first on-screen kill.
> 
> Also, tits. Because even when writing a serious fic, I am still a big pervert. But then, aren't most writers? ;P
> 
> Updated: 4-12-15
> 
> TTFN and R&R!
> 
> – — ❤


	5. To the Town of Outlaws

Zaku Abumi was officially a genin of Otogakure. Out of the ten students in their year, only one half had survived the final test, precisely as it was meant to be. After five years of living and learning together, they had been given one final assignment to complete before they could be considered ninja of the Hidden Sound:

Kill one of their classmates.

One by one, they were paired off and ordered to fight to the death, just as it had once been done in the Bloody Mist. It was a brutal rite of passage, one which ensured that those who had somehow formed bonds of friendship with their fellows would be disabused of any idealistic delusions.

Zaku passed with flying colors, as did four others. Not a single one of them hesitated to deal the finishing blow. The five surviving students became genin. Then they were given their first missions.

Zaku completed his first job with little trouble, going into a nearby village with Toshizo and Kin and intimidating the dissident elements residing therein. Upon coming back to the underground complex, he was given another job – this time working alongside Paki and Dosu. They scoured the lower caverns for lost students and escaped test subjects, a routine patrol, with orders to summarily execute anyone who refused to return to base.

Once they completed their second mission, they were given payment and a day to themselves, which most of them spent in their newly allocated apartments. Though cramped and dark and minimally furnished, these living quarters were still _theirs_ and no one else's. It was an undeniable step up from the canned fish arrangement of the student dormitory.

After resting they were given another mission, again with another team configuration to keep them on their toes. They completed this mission and came back to be given another one, which they completed just as well. And so on and so forth, they carried out this routine, serving the Sound Village to the best of their abilities for three long months.

In this time most of them grew by leaps and bounds, honing their skills in the field. No amount of training or practice could quite match the effectiveness of a live fire exercise with one's life on the line, as far as strengthening a ninja's grasp of his arts went.

Dosu refined the use of his melody arm, and Paki delved into the world of elemental hiden; Toshizo improved his stealth and bukijutsu, and Kin devised more subtle and complex tricks. Zaku practiced the basics, and devised a variety of possible ways to use his wind cutters in combat – although many were purely theoretical at his present level of control and power.

All of them gained valuable on-the-job experience in those three months of carrying out mission after mission, and they acquired several more notches on their belts and blades. They served until they'd proven themselves acceptably competent to carry out their master's will.

Only then were they given a _real_ mission.

* * *

Toshizo Shiin was a small boy, pale, with a wavy mop of charcoal hair that fell over his eyes and ears. He was quiet, too, and never said much to his teammates. Mostly he just followed the lead of whomever was in charge and carried out the orders given to him.

He sat crouched on a high rock, peering out into the distance. A shuriken was in his hand – he flicked it back and forth between his fingers.

"...I can see the town," he murmured, addressing his teammates behind him.

Dosu looked up at this, and he spied the small lad perched on the standing stone.

"Yes, it shouldn't be long now until we reach it," he said with an almost imperceptible nod. "The busiest tourist town in this country... that's where we'll find our objective."

Kin leaped up onto the stone, standing over Toshizo and looking out where he was.

"It's right there at the foot of those mountains," she said. "Our destination... _Fuuma Lane_ , isn't it called?"

"Not a very creative name, is it?" muttered Paki, her short green hair tipped with orange. "Almost like they're not even trying to _hide_ that it's their home."

"The Fuuma clan is our target, yeah," Zaku commented, walking past the base of the standing stone. "But they probably don't even realize it, yet..." He let out a bark of laughter. "Hah! I can't believe those idiots really thought they could get away with only sending Orochimaru-sama their three most promising ninja."

Dosu hummed and walked forward, passing Zaku and the stone.

"It's not really a matter of how much or how little they offer, though," he mused. "Rather, it's a matter of their wariness and reluctance. Our lord is not a forgiving man. Those who mistrust him or refuse to cooperate with his designs... will have to be dealt with."

"Our target is one of their more prominent members, right?" Kin said, hopping down from the stone. "Hanzaki and his little band of followers. They're the main thing getting in the way, here, saying garbage about how Orochimaru-sama isn't to be trusted."

"So they are," said Dosu neutrally. He gave a terse nod.

Toshizo silently jumped down, next, catching up to the others and bringing up the rear along with Paki.

"He doesn't sound like much, that Hanzaki fellow," mused Paki, nodding to her own words. "But he's got the ears of more Fuuma clansfolk than is convenient for us..."

She sighed wistfully.

"Ahh, it's really a shame I won't get to see that look on Arashi-kun's face when he finds out how many of his family members had to be put down for refusing to cooperate...! Hehehe, I'm sure it'll be delightfully shameful❤"

The verdette licked her lips, eyes twinkling at the thought.

Zaku picked up his pace to put a little more distance between himself and Paki. She was one of the creepiest people he knew, and that was saying a _lot_.

"No need to kill 'em all," Toshizo murmured, fingering one of his shuriken. His lips curled into a frightful grin. "Eheh... but I still wanna."

"Sounds fun, yeah," Zaku agreed. "And I bet I'll get more kills than any of you losers."

"Oho? What would you be willing to wager?" Paki inquired, her interest visibly piqued.

"Whatever the winner feels like asking for," said Zaku, sneering. "I'm sure you'd bet the same."

Paki smiled viciously, casting her eyes up and down Zaku's form.

"Hmm, well... not as cute as Arashi-kun, but I suppose that face of yours isn't TOO painful to look at..." she murmured. A smirk. "Yes, I suppose that sounds tempting enough."

Zaku smirked in response.

Kin rolled her eyes.

" _Perverts_ ," she muttered disdainfully, side-eyeing the pair with a tiniest hint of color to her cheeks. "I can already tell what you two are thinking of taking if you win."

"Let it stay between them," Dosu suggested flatly. He pierced Kin with a discerning glance. "No need to ante up if you never make a wager."

The brunette flushed a little deeper.

"Hmph! I'm sure I can do better than either of those idiots," she muttered, glaring specifically at Paki. "I bet my pay for this mission that _I'll_ get the most kills."

The verdette waved a hand dismissively.

"Whatever," Paki snorted. "You're just betting money? Hah. That's no fun."

"Yeah," Zaku concurred. "What, are you really _that_ afraid you'll lose?"

Kin narrowed her eyes, cheeks darkening a bit further. They were nearly scarlet by this point. She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest.

"I won't even dignify that with a response," she muttered.

Conversation died down for a while, after this. They reached the tourist town in silence, walking through its streets until they found their goal. It came into view after a few minutes of searching. A simple, wooden archway greeted them, colored lanterns hanging upon it. In the gloaming twilight, a sign was illuminated with a red glow. It bore the kanji:

風馬小路

Fuuma Lane.

"Huh," Dosu said, looking down the street.

It was lined with bars and burlesques, cabaret clubs and strip shows and houses of ill repute. Colorful, bawdy signage showed off female bodies of questionably idealized shape exposing far more skin than not, muffled music of all sorts drifting through the air as poster girls passed out fliers advertising their shops and streetwalkers plied their venerable trade in the gutter.

"What the hell?" said Kin, blinking once. "Are you sure we've got the right place, Dosu?"

"I... I think so?" said the team captain, sounding for a moment almost like he was at a loss. Then he took a deep breath, and more confidently he said, "Yes, I'm sure it is. We followed the directions exactly."

Kin gave Dosu an incredulous look.

"This is a _red light district_ ," she said. "Why on earth would a ninja clan of _any_ sort set up shop in a place like this?"

"I can think of a few reasons," Paki interjected, smirking. "I understand most of this land's ninja clans fell on rather hard times after their daimyo tried to invade one of the neighboring countries. They must really be hurting for money, you know?"

Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.

Toshizo hummed and nodded in agreement. He seemed to be staring curiously at the bare thighs of an especially voluptuous woman in a very short skirt. His fingers twitched toward a concealed kunai pouch, as though itching to slash or stab something at the sight of so much soft, unprotected flesh.

"... ... ..."

He licked his lips, radiating a bit of undirected _sakki_. The others could feel his urge to kill, but it was only a slight impulsive longing at the moment.

Zaku sneered, letting out a low chuckle.

"Heh, these Fuuma bastards are probably so weak that the only way they can make any money is by selling their bodies on street corners," he drawled.

Paki sniggered. "I would've liked to see Arashi-kun doing that," she purred. "But then, I suppose someone that cute must also have some equally cute relatives...❤"

Kin blushed in spite of herself, eyes lighting up with something like interest at what Paki suggested. Toshizo didn't seem to react.

Dosu hummed thoughtfully.

"In a way, though, isn't that what all ninja do?" he mused, waving an airy hand. "I don't really see much difference between killing someone and having sex with them. Shinobi are paid to do both, even if the latter is usually as a lead-in to the former."

"Bah," Zaku huffed. "Either way, it looks like these Fuuma losers must feel right at home with common thieves and whores."

Kin smirked and nodded her agreement. "For once you're actually making some sense, Zaku," she said. "Scum who are too fearful of Orochimaru-sama's radiance to bow down and serve him are clearly better off dead."

Zaku grinned at this. Paki giggled, and Toshizo cocked his head to one side.

Dosu narrowed his one visible eye.

"Mm... perhaps. Do try not to step on anyone's toes, though, hm?" he said lowly. "It would be a shame if our... _friends_... refused to cooperate just because you offended their delicate sensibilities."

Almost imperceptibly, he tilted his head, covertly gesturing toward a dark side alley. Zaku followed this motion and noticed a large man standing in the shadows. He could feel the faintest prickle of killing intent. Kin scowled, seeing the same thing.

" _Fine_ ," she muttered. "We'll play nice. For now."

In the alleyway, the man's silhouette melted back into darkness.

The five Sound genin continued on their way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And so begins the first miniature "arc" of this fic. Haha, I hadn't planned to do so, but it seems that Toshizo and Paki are starting to evolve rather distinct characterizations of their own... even if just as their own unique flavors of creepy little psychopath.
> 
> Also, somehow I apparently have decided that Paki is a distant relative of Pakura. Entirely because the name I chose for her looks kinda similar to Pakura's.
> 
> I actually watched most of the relevant episodes in the anime and took notes just to make sure I had the details of the Fuuma filler arc straight, by the way. So if something seems inaccurate, it's probably just me taking a couple artistic liberties.
> 
> Updated: 4-16-15
> 
> TTFN and R&R!
> 
> – — ❤


	6. Ironclad Rules of Reconnaissance

In order to cover more ground, it was decided after twenty minutes with no sign of any Fuuma ninja that the five of them should split up and canvass different parts of the street. Kin and Paki elected to reconnoiter the north end of Fuuma Lane, and Toshizo was assigned to investigate a few of the more likely hideouts. This left Dosu and Zaku to explore the southern end of the traveler town's sizable red light district.

For close to an hour, they melted into the crowds and surveyed the area, using their training to covertly gather intelligence on the different people and establishments in Fuuma Lane. Specifically, they did this with the goal of locating Hanzaki and his followers, who'd shown neither hide nor hair of themselves since the Sound ninja had arrived.

So far, it had been a fruitless search.

"Where do you suppose we can find them?" Zaku wondered aloud, scowling as he cast his eyes over a pair of gossiping prostitutes.

"Mm? Find who?" Dosu said sarcastically, looking sidelong at Zaku and quirking his one visible eyebrow.

Zaku glared.

"Oh, don't screw with me. You know perfectly well who I'm talking about: the _Fuuma!_ " he snapped. "The guys we're here for? I haven't seen any sign of them since we got here, and it's starting to really piss me off!"

"Ah, them. Yes..." Dosu nodded slowly, humming to himself. "Well, they will certainly know that we're here by now. So presumably they're hiding from us."

"Oh, _really_. And why would they ever hide from emissaries of Orochimaru-sama, do you suppose?" Zaku grumbled.

Dosu gave him a flat look.

"Obviously Hanzaki has grown even more influential than we'd expected, with the clan leader and his son away in our lord's care," he drawled.

Zaku glowered, directing his frustration via black glares at a ponytailed brunette in a short-hemmed yukata. He read the signboard she carried, advertising discount prices and two-for-one deals at _Eromesu Palace_. Impatiently he tapped his fingers and huffed.

"Their old clan HQ was already abandoned when we arrived," he muttered, "and we've been tailed on and off our whole time here. It's getting on my nerves. Are these bastards gonna show themselves, or will we just have to blow up the whole alley?"

"It is becoming tiresome, I will admit... but we oughtn't be too hasty." Dosu inclined his head, stroking his chin. "Perhaps it's about time we tried a different tactic. We're due to meet back up with the others shortly; if they haven't found anything, either, then we'll try a more subtle approach."

"What, so you don't think we're being stealthy enough?" Zaku questioned, skepticism obvious in his tone as he took a look around. "I don't know about that..."

Despite their eccentric manner of dress, they were scarcely being given more than a cursory glance by any of the civilian passerby. They concealed their presence just enough to seem inconspicuous despite their youth, and no one had given them a second look as far as he'd noticed. It was a simple matter to divert people's attention off of one's self, once one knew how to do so, and they did this quite well from what he could tell.

"I think it might not be a matter of _stealth_ so much as how we're going about gathering information," Dosu said carefully. "There's only so much that can be learned through observation. It may be prudent to try more direct lines of inquiry..."

Zaku frowned.

"You don't mean... just _asking_ people, do you?" he said disbelievingly. "That sounds _retarded_."

"I think you'd be surprised," said Dosu, his words vaguely portentous. "The others are sure to see the logic in it, however."

They headed to the rendezvous point in silence.

* * *

"That sounds _retarded_ ," Kin said, crossing her arms over her chest. She and Paki sat next to Toshizo and Zaku at a tea house near the end of Fuuma Lane. Dosu stood in the shade of a small tree opposite the four of them. "No way is that plan a good idea."

"Exactly!" Zaku said, raising his arms and gesturing in emphasis. " _She_ gets what I'm saying!"

Dosu waved a hand dismissively.

"Our _friends_ couldn't have left town in the time it took us to get here," he patiently explained. "Not without leaving signs of their departure. It's obvious the Fuuma clan still calls this place home, but they've also clearly gone underground. We'll need to ask around and gather intelligence if we hope to find them. Doing this might even smoke them out, if we're fortunate."

"Or it could be a trap," Toshizo mumbled passively, staring off into the distance.

" _Or_ it could be a trap," Kin said, nodding at this assessment. "We've been shadowed more than once since arriving, so obviously _someone_ knows that we're here."

Paki frowned thoughtfully and stroked her chin.

"I dunno, I think I get what Dosu is saying," she murmured. "Better to be proactive and gather information than just stumble around blindly and hope to find something."

"Indeed, that's the idea," Dosu said with a curt nod. "Obviously we'll need to do so under _henge_ , but we can't make any moves, regardless, without some idea of where our targets might have sequestered themselves."

Zaku scowled.

"And if doing this tips them off?" he asked.

"Then we'll be in an ideal position to know of their response," Dosu replied loftily. "If snooping around gets them to tip their hands, then all the better for us."

"At least until they ambush us or catch us in a death trap," Kin muttered.

"What was that?" Paki wondered facetiously, smirking.

"Tch, nothing." Kin looked away and glowered at a patch of brown, trampled grass.

Toshizo shrugged, seeming to lose interest in the discussion. Zaku absentmindedly massaged his wrists, watching Kin out of the corner of his eye. Dosu and Paki shared a look with one another and nodded, the verdette standing up from the bench.

"You three can wait here," Dosu said, glancing at the trio of reluctant skeptics. "This tea shop seems to be fairly popular. I'm sure you'll overhear something of worth if you wait and listen long enough."

The patronization wasn't overtly apparent, but Zaku still twitched at the subtle undertone in Dosu's voice.

"Just be sure you idiots don't get yourselves in trouble," he said flippantly. "I don't plan on bailing you out if you get locked up or captured."

"Duly noted," said Paki, waving a hand dismissively. "And don't forget about our bet, Zaku! If I get more kills than you... well, I'm sure you can imagine what I might do❤"

She smiled viciously, sending a shiver up Zaku's spine.

"Yeah, sure," he muttered, disgruntled and perturbed. "Just buzz off already, you stupid..."

There was a shout of pained surprise from the tea shop proper, as though someone had just had a steaming hot drink spilled on their lap. The exclamation drowned out whatever Zaku said next.

Paki and Dosu left, slipping off into the shadows to transform unseen, and Kin let out a frustrated sigh.

"They're not going to be back any time soon, you know," she observed. "I have a feeling we're gonna be here a while."

Zaku raised his cup and took a sip.

"Yeah, probably."

* * *

Not long passed before something of interest happened. Kin, Toshizo, and Zaku had been making themselves incospicuous, sharing a passable approximation of casual conversation so as to deflect undue attention from themselves, when they were quite suddenly approached by a pair of women.

One was blonde and voluptuous, with ample breasts scarcely contained by a skimpy purple dress. She had a personable smile and charming demeanor, giving the impression of a lovely and charismatic hostess. Her expression was disarmingly genial with only a touch of that haughtiness peculiar to very specific breeds of adult when dealing with youths, a slightest condescension of maturity deigning to stoop down and address a coarse and uncouth child.

The other had black hair, long and dark. She wore a garment of similar shade to the blonde's, albeit perhaps more navy than violet. Her manner of dress appeared more traditional than her friend's, at least at first glance, but the way in which she wore it showed a good deal more skin than kimono were supposed to. Especially in regards to her generous cleavage, a fair deal of which was exposed. Her demeanor seemed relatively reserved, less cheerful and more chary.

Both of them appeared perfectly at home in a red light district with their form, mien, and garb. They could have been hostesses or cabaret girls, exotic dancers or prostitutes. Whatever their profession, it was obvious that they cultivated a baser sort of beauty and sensual appeal for its sake, taking care to make themselves look sexually appealing beyond the extent of mere vanity.

To Kin, at least, this much was obvious from first glance. A blend of ninja training and woman's intuition let her deduce as much with no more than a look.

She scowled at this pair, her right eye subtly twitching. Enmity immediately took root in the lass, a reflexive mixture of envy and mistrust upon seeing these very attractive, very _adult_ women. Toshizo eyed them balefully, with a detached sort of disdain, and just a hint of lazily repressed bloodlust. Zaku covertly took a long, appreciative look at their bodies, a more conventional sort of lust flickering to life in his pubescent mind.

"Ah, look," said the blonde silkily to her companion, gesturing to Zaku and company. "Three little children have lost their way and wandered into the mouth of a lion's den."

The brunette laughed demurely, a hand over her mouth and a twinkle in her eye.

"Yes, indeed. These poor young souls have strayed far from safety, coming to Fuuma Lane." She smiled haughtily at Kin. "Good children should not be here, little girl. This place is a haven for adults, filled with things much too inappropriate for ones so young."

"Most certainly," the blonde chortled agreeably, spying Zaku's eyes glued to what little fabric constituted the front of her dress. "An innocent boy so entranced by the mere glimpse of a woman's breasts has no place in this part of town. Go home, children, and enjoy youth while it is still yours to have."

Kin bristled, glaring at both the blonde and Zaku.

"Go spread your legs in the gutter," she sneered, defiantly crossing her arms over her chest. "I'm sure the tramps and vagabonds sorely miss your company on the street corner, _hag_."

Eyes flashed at this barb. The blonde and brunette met Kin's glare with disinterested amusement.

"Mm, you have a very clever tongue, child," the older brunette commented, smiling. "But what a filthy mouth for a girl so young. Hopefully your little boyfriends here will find a far more... _constructive_ use for it when you're older."

Kin's face reddened at this comment, and she glared even more hotly at the woman. Zaku seemed conflicted over whether to snigger and leer at Kin, or stonewall the strangers in strategic solidarity with his teammate.

Toshizo cocked his head, as though he either didn't get the comment or just didn't care.

"But I must wonder, dear, what these three are doing here," the blonde added, clasping her hands and leaning closer. "Who might you children be, to come so willfully to this place with no adults to supervise you?"

"They're in the bathroom," Zaku coolly bluffed, somehow finding the force of will to look the woman in the eye despite the rather powerful attractive forces just a little further south. "You must have just missed 'em."

"That's a poor go at lying, handsome," said the raven-haired woman. She smirked at the slight flush which arose in Zaku's cheeks at that last word. "Hinagiku and I have been watching the three of you since you came here. Or perhaps I should say _five_ of you? Although it's been almost fifteen minutes since your little friends left..."

"I'm sure we have no idea what you're talking about," Kin sniffed. "Are you certain you haven't gotten us confused with someone else?"

"Ahhh, I don't think she realizes who we are yet, Kotohime!" said the blonde, Hinagiku, looking sidelong at her friend. "Disappointing, really. I'd expected more from them." She turned back to the trio. "Go home, children. We aren't the sort of people with whom good little boys and girls should be getting mixed up."

"We've dealt with worse than prostitutes," Zaku retorted dismissively, sneering. "It'd take more than seeing the two of you gangbanged by a pack of derelicts to traumatize us."

The brunette, Kotohime, smiled.

"Ohoho... You ought to have taken your friend's advice, kids," she said, gesturing languidly to her chest. "Mm, the two of us are _many_ things, yes.. but there are some things that just shouldn't be said to a woman... let alone kunoichi of the Fuuma clan."

The three Sound-nin stiffened as one. Zaku's fingers twitched, and Kin reached reflexively for her weapons. Toshizo moved to stand up.

Then they heard the noise of footfalls on the rooftops, dozens of bodies springing into position at once. Bows creaked and groaned audibly, their strings drawn. A throaty baritone called out from overhead, and its words rang in their ears.

"Haaah? _This_ is what Orochimaru sends to intimidate us? A gaggle of children?!" The voice's owner scoffed. "He's mocking us. I'll not abide this insult!"

Kin and Zaku swore under their breath and turned at once to face the source of these words. They immediately recognized their primary target, Hanzaki Fuuma, standing next to a young girl with ginger hair. Backing him up were at least two and a half dozen archers in formation, bows bent and arrows knocked.

They aimed straight for the trio of Oto genin.

"...well, shit."

It was a trap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Well, this fic has suddenly seen a relative upswing in reviews. Seems a few more people than I'd expected are actually rather liking it, haha. I dunno if this chapter has lived up to the expectations of the reviewers, and I feel like there are parts to it that I could have done a better, but hopefully y'all can enjoy it for what it is.
> 
> Whatever that is.
> 
> Updated: 4-24-15
> 
> TTFN and R&R!
> 
> – — ❤


	7. Bloodbath in Fuuma Lane

Archers lined the rooftops, led by the dissident Fuuma clansman Hanzaki. They hemmed in the trio of Sound genin from above, arrows knocked and bows curved, trained on their frozen forms.

"...well, shit," Kin muttered, grimacing. A hand was halfway into her weapon pouch. "This will be a mess. How the hell did we miss all _that?_ "

"I don't know," Zaku mused. "I mean, we were paying plenty attention to our surroundings until..." He trailed off, the realization coming late. "...aw, hell. Those bitches were just a distraction, weren't they? Damn. That's annoying."

Laughter sounded, cool and silky.

Kotohime and Hinagiku, the two Fuuma kunoichi who had initially presented themselves as scarlet women concerned by the presence of three children in the red light district, took a few steps back from the trio. Painted lips, plump and ruby red, smirked in silent triumph.

"These children aren't very bright, are they?" came Hinagiku's lilting chortle. "Ufufu, but I suppose that's the price of youth."

"It's a pity they'll never have a chance to surpass their present ignorance," Kotohime added, "but they are clearly servants of Orochimaru."

Hanzaki nodded sternly from the rooftop, placing a hand on the hilt of his massive sword.

"Yes," he said. "Children or not, they are still enemy shinobi. Strike them down without mercy!"

Zaku scowled and moved as if to strike. Toshizo ducked low, disappearing from the immediate line of sight.

The two women smiled.

"Ah, ah, ah!" Hinagiku playfully scolded. "You should pay attention to the more immediate threat, little boy."

Kotohime wove a handseal.

"You're too late to try and catch us."

A smoke bomb struck the ground, detonating in a thick white plume. The pair vanished under its cover, avoiding Toshizo's errant swipe. They were gone before Zaku could even blow the smoke away, although their voices echoed on for a few seconds after they disappeared.

"We'll leave the clean up in your hands, Hanzaki..."

"...while we take care of _other matters_ back at base..."

Zaku's expression darkened, and he shot a glare at the archers.

"Damn, we don't even get to fight the hot ones?" he muttered. "What a gyp." A moment passed, and he crossed his arms over his chest. "Ah, well. On the bright side, at least, it looks like I've got that bet in the bag. Most of the scrubs have come out to play with us, it seems."

"I wanted to kill the pretty ones," Toshizo mumbled, a soft whine. "Those girls would've looked real nice all sliced up and covered in blood."

Kin rolled her eyes.

"Ugh. You two are impossible," she groaned. "Just focus on the matter at hand, okay? We'll track those two down once we've finished up here, if you really feel like we have to."

"Grr... Don't take us lightly, dammit! You brats are outmatched!" Hanzaki snarled, brandishing his sword. "You didn't even sense us coming!"

Zaku laughed. He looked past Hanzaki, eyes glinting, to assess the archers backing the man up. He shrugged dismissively, shaking his head as if to say this didn't matter.

"We didn't need to, honestly," he bluffed. "Our job was just to lure you idiots out into the open. Now it's open season on your dumb asses."

Hanzaki snapped.

"FIRE!" he roared.

Bowstrings twanged, and arrows flew through the air. Kin boredly flipped a table and ducked behind it with Toshizo, one drawing a kunai and the other gripping a taut filament. Zaku raised a hand, grinning, and pushed his chakra forward.

An invisible shockwave knocked the projectiles out of the sky.

"Too easy," Zaku drawled, popping his wrist with a lazy roll. "I hope you weren't planning on wiping us out with _that_ lame attack."

The ginger lass next to Hanzaki gaped. Several of the archers grimaced, knocking another arrow in spite of themselves.

Kin muttered something inaudible and wrapped an explosive note around the hilt of a kunai. She then drew another kunai and whipped that one over the edge of the table. A wooden thunk reached their ears seconds later, striking the edge of the roof just under Hanzaki's feet, and a gossamer wire glinted in sunlight for the briefest instant.

Hanzaki narrowed his eyes, crossing arms like tree trunks over a barrel chest.

"You've already taken Kotarou-sama and his son from us... and Kagerou-san as well. Leave now, and never come back. No more Fuuma will be made subject to Orochimaru's whim!" the burly dissident bellowed. He gripped the hilt of his sword. "Not while I draw breath! _We will not submit!_ "

Kin snorted, peering out from behind the table.

"Not a very subtle guy, is he?" she muttered, brandishing the kunai with a bomb-marked tag on its hilt. Toshizo, beside her, unspooled a length of razor wire from his equipment pouch.

"Yeah," Zaku mused. "He's a real blowhard."

Kin smirked.

"I think _you_ probably blow harder, though," she quipped.

"Only if _you_ is referring to yourself in the second person," Zaku rejoined.

Kin rolled her eyes.

Up on the rooftops, bows were bent, strings pulled to their limit. Aim was taken anew.

"—AT WILL!" Hanzaki commanded.

Fingers released the bowstrings, a synchronized motion that snapped and twanged in surround sound. A symphony of arrows whistled through the air, a flight of death in a capella. The oto-nin took disinterested note of this, and Zaku lazily raised his hands in answer.

He imbued his chakra, natured and focused it, then swept his palms apart like a conductor leading an orchestra. Twin arcs of pressure washed out and slammed the arrows aside, making the volley break like a wave on rock. Darts spun and snapped mid-air, knocked aside like leaves before a fierce gale. Sundered arrows fell uselessly to the ground on either side of the tea shop.

Zaku smirked.

Kin made the next move, leaping out from behind the table.

"Dull and repetitive," she sighed. "What an ugly, unappealing melody. It's about time these guys were silenced."

Flicking her wrist, she whipped a second kunai at the first one. Iron grazed iron and shuddered; one spun, and the other vibrated. The ringing sound seemed to linger in the air, thrumming lower and deeper, and the bomb kunai landed on the roof, in the very midst of the formation.

For a moment, nothing seemed to happen.

Nothing whatsoever.

The archers were frozen in place. Nearly invisible piano wires vibrated, strung up all above the street. Persistently, the humming seemed to grow worse, a bone deep ringing that tormented the listeners, a baritone tinnitus that seemed to get louder and louder until it had swallowed up all other sounds.

For a moment, it seemed like no one could move.

Then Hanzaki wrenched his hands into a ram seal, shouting "KAI!" and grabbing the young girl next to him. A few others followed his lead, breaking out of the genjutsu in time to notice thin wisps of smoke rising from a hissing, fizzing paper bomb.

Only enough time to save themselves was left.

BANG!

The tag went off with a crack of thunder and acrid smoke, a booming and crunching and rushing of air. Roof tiles shattered, beams splintering, fire leaping up and devouring the bodies of those hapless enough to be caught in the explosion. Although not overly large, it was still enough to take care of those who failed to break the genjutsu quick enough.

Less than half of the ambushers escaped the blast, and that number was quickly shaved down even further. Those who jumped carelessly into the street and found their path intersecting the strung-up piano wire quickly learned that the filament had been honed to a frightful edge. Their own momentum hewed them upon the wires, carrying their bodies headlong into the razor web.

Hanzaki's robust sword tore through several strands, clearing a path for himself and a few others, including the young girl. It was not enough to save them all, however.

Dismembered limbs and headless torsos littered the ground, a number more of mutilated corpses suspended mid-air. Blood dripped down wire. A few of the less fortunate ones were still alive despite being tangled in the razor cords, retaining just enough consciousness to gurgle out their agony as they carved their bodies up with their own death throes.

Toshizo stepped out from behind the table, his eyes alight with a childlike glee at the carnage tumbled about their feet and hanging above their heads.

"Ah, what a splendid view," he whispered. A grin spread from ear to ear. "So much blood, hehe."

Kin produced several senbon from between her fingers, smirking coolly.

"Too bad, Zaku. It looks like I win," she said. "My trap's already killed most of them. What is that? Twenty, thirty necks in all?"

Zaku replied with a rather impolite gesture.

Hanzaki grimaced, settling into a swordsman's stance. His surviving fellows discarded their ranged weapons in favor of a variety of knives, short swords, cudgels, and axes.

"Dammit!" he cursed. "So they laid a trap for our trap, huh? Clever bastards." Hanzaki growled, looking sidelong at the ginger lass beside him. "Sasame, head back to the hideout. Catch up with Kotohime and the others."

He grimaced and set his jaw.

"But... these are the people who took Arashi-niichan and Kagerou-san, and Kotarou-sama!" the girl replied, looking reluctant to heed his words. "I want to stay and fight. I can help, I know I can!"

"GO!" Hanzaki shouted, clenching his fists and gripping the hilt of his zanbatou all the more tightly. "You'll just get in the way if you stay here."

She flinched.

Zaku watched this exchange with narrowed eyes, and Kin caught his glance. The girl, Sasame, turned and ran down the street, Hanzaki and the remaining ambushers closing rank behind her.

A silent communication passed between the trio of Sound ninja.

Kin threw a handful of senbon. Toshizo tossed a smoke bomb.

 _Shunshin no Jutsu_.

Zaku used this distraction to body flicker around past the Fuuma flunkies, bounding off the wall of a soap shop in a blur. He zipped behind Hanzaki and the surviving ambushers, hurrying to get Sasame in sight once more.

"Where'd he go?!" he heard an enemy shout in the distance behind him. "I think one of them has—"

His words cut off in a wet gurgle, and the dull thump of a few pounds dead weight falling into the dirt reached Zaku's ears. Zaku smirked and ducked into the shadows, timing it just right to avoid Sasame's notice, the girl looking worriedly over her shoulder.

She slowed, hesitating and nearly coming to a stop.

He saw the conflicted emotions run across her face, the fear and concern and anger and determination. She faltered, wavered. It looked, for a moment, like she would turn and run back to her comrades. Zaku shifted outside her line of sight and imbued a little chakra. Just in case.

But then Sasame grimaced and shook her head, gritting her teeth and clenching her fists. With a visible force of effort, she tore herself away from the shouts and clashing blades, steeled her resolve and continued down her path.

Zaku grinned and followed. Sasame made her way to the Fuuma clan's base, and he tailed her from the shadows.

Behind them, bells tinkled and voices cried out. Iron rang on iron, blades glancing off one another, and razor wire sliced through flesh. Zaku pursued the opportunity which presented itself, leaving his teammates to fend for themselves.

They could handle these scrubs, he was sure. And even if they couldn't, well... _well_ , if they couldn't even handle a fight of that level, then they really weren't fit to call themselves Sound Ninja, were they?

 _I'm not gonna lose,_ Zaku promised himself. _I'm going to beat that bitch even if I have to slaughter every other person in the Fuuma clan._

He smirked and darted down an alleyway after Sasame. She weaved between crates and garbage bags, ducking under a busted fence and squeezing past a dumpster. It actually didn't take long at all before she reached her destination, although the journey was filled with detours and tricky bits of navigation.

She barreled down a grimy, seemingly derelict side street, dashing past unlit street lamps and half-rotted shacks. The lass came to her final stop before a dilapidated storefront, the weather worn sign above the door so scratched and faded with age as to be completely illegible.

Zaku watched Sasame shove the front door open, a thin beam of light spilling over her slender form as she darted inside. A hurried shout tore from her lips, words choppy and tumbled in her frantic, winded state.

"It was a trap!" she cried, "They—so much blood—it happened so fast—knew we were coming! Everyone... almost everyone is already—! Hurry! If we head back fast enough, we might be able to...!"

_Now's my chance._

Snake. Hare. Horse. Boar.

Dragon. Boar. Ox. Snake.

Zaku stepped back and took aim. He could hear the voices inside, a confused tumult of shouting and oaths to account for easily most of the rest of the Fuuma clan. The building was large enough to house them, but it was also in a state of rather advanced decay. One big shot to the central load-bearing supports would be sufficient to bring the whole thing down, and anyone who survived the collapse could be dug out of the rubble at his and his teammates' leisure.

He brought both hands up and together. Chakra thrummed in his arms, a pressure building until it was almost impossible to contain. He focused the energies in his hands, beginning the first steps of shaping the blast, forming a close-ringed shell of air to compress two jets into one, a trumpet of chakra to fan out the gust and let it spread far enough to level everything in front of him.

It reached the boiling point, his inner pressure at critical. Beyond this level he could contain it no further. Raw destructive power built up to this moment, ready to explode out from his hands, a force of pure annihilation at his fingertips

Cry havoc, and let loose the hounds of war.

" _Zan...kuu...kyoku_ —"

A fist buried itself in his gut, coming out of nowhere. Pain made his world explode into fireworks. He tasted copper. Zaku toppled backwards, his eyes going wide. His hands flew apart, and the jutsu he had built up burst out into the sky. It screamed through the heavens, his extreme decapitating vacuum wave going far wide of its target.

His wrists burned like molten fire, a searing pain in his hands, but his fingers were cold, stiff, almost numb. It felt like they could hardly move.

The price paid for power was no small thing.

Zaku met dark eyes, a fair face framed by silky raven locks. He shuddered, grimacing and struggling back to his feet. He saw a feminine jaw set itself in determination, womanly features turning hard and grim.

"That was close," Kotohime muttered. "If I'd been a second later, that jutsu might have..."

"I can't believe Sasame didn't notice this one following her," another man whispered, emerging from the shadows. He was bald with a number of scars, seeming to dangle from invisible threads.

"She's got no situational awareness, that girl," drawled a third, younger and more conventionally handsome than the second, with a large and curiously pincer-like blade strapped to one arm. "Only thing she has going for her is a pretty face."

Zaku grit his teeth. He stared down his three opponents for a moment, before catching a flash of green and white in the corner of his vision.

"Well, hell. Are you guys just going to watch, or do you plan to come out and help? It's your fault we got split up in the first place... Dosu, Paki." He smirked. "You and your stupid ass plans."

A rush of air, and a salvo of shuriken. One caused the pincer-blade wielder to stagger, and the other forced the scarred, bald man to sidestep.

"Hmph. We _were_ going to sneak in and lay down the last paper bombs," Dosu said, sidling up alongside Zaku. "But then you had to go and blow our cover. So now I guess we have no choice but to do this the old fashioned way."

There was a hint of amusement in his tone.

"No point trying to finish setting it up now," Paki shrugged. "I doubt what we have will get _everyone_ , but I've set quite a few up already. Should be sufficient to win me the bet."

She formed a handseal. Three sets of eyes widened, and three bodies tensed in horror.

Smoke and flame, a thunderclap and mighty crash. The rear portions of the building came toppling down, a good two thirds of the dilapidated compound collapsing in on itself. Dust was kicked up, swallowing all six of them in darkness.

Cries rose, then were quickly silenced.

Zaku laughed bitterly.

"Goddamn," he muttered. "So it's come down you or Kin, huh? Tch, what a pain."

Kotohime and her two allies let out furious shouts, and charged.

"You... YOU **BASTARDS!** "

The battle was joined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Been a bit since the last update, haha... sorry. I got sick for a while, and recently got Minecraft for PSVita, too, so writing was rather low on my list of priorities the last week or two.
> 
> That aside, though, I must say that fights can be fun to write, but they are also tricky. Especially when you're tired and just want to finish a chapter up already. This changed a fair amount from the rough draft, particularly with the twist of Zaku and co revealing to have planned on being ambushed.
> 
> And one reviewer posed a very interesting question about Dosu, particularly in regards to whether he's actually a girl. And... haha, I certainly hadn't planned anything like that, and had sorta just had him as a main character for now because of the whole Sound Nin Trio thing, but... well, now that they've suggested it, I am tempted.
> 
> I suppose we'll just have to wait and see if anything comes of that, won't we? Haha! ;P
> 
> Also, I dunno how well I've paced the action here. I tried to keep it relatively quick and engaging without dragging the scenes out unnecessarily, but I wonder if there might not have been a trade off in terms of proper build up... ah, well, I guess that's up to you guys to decide, isn't it?
> 
> Updated: 5-1-15
> 
> TTFN and R&R!
> 
> – — ❤
> 
> EDIT: I am le dumb and put the seals for clone jutsu before Zaku's attempted Zankuukyokuha. Fixed that, changed it to proper seals for Zankuuha, then added on another four to make it "mi-u-uma-i" with an added "tatsu-i-ushi-mi" to emphasize the jutsu as a more advanced and powerful variation.


	8. One on One

Zaku skipped back, strafing left to right. He dodged a swipe from Kotohime's hands, long and sharp nails barely missing his cheek. The kunoichi's hair trailed behind her in a raven cascade, long and sinuous legs carrying her body forward. She was no longer in a kimono, but instead wearing a ninja outfit of similar color to Kin's, though much more revealing.

He ducked under a knife hand swing, then jumped over a low sweeping kick. Moved his body to the left when she charged at him, sidestepping and moving behind her as she darted past his right.

SMACK.

He drove an open palm into the small of her back, a sharp blow that jarred his hand and caused her to stumble. Following up on the opening, he aimed a chop for the back of her neck, but she caught herself at the last second and spun, ducking under the stroke and driving a fist into his gut.

"Guh! You bitch...!"

Zaku staggered back, coughing up flecks of hot spittle. He reeled from the blow for a moment, the woman's superior age and size giving her an advantage in straight up punching power. Claw-like fingernails raked his chest, ripping the cloth of his shirt – he felt the sting of skin breaking, four thin lines scored over his sternum.

He snarled and lashed out with a wild fist, catching Kotohime on the shoulder. She winced, but did not relent in her offensive, and whipped a leg up to kick him on the chin.

Zaku saw a flash of scarlet satin and smooth, pale flesh seconds before the blow landed.

His head snapped back, and stars danced in his field of vision. Blindly he swung his arms out and grabbed at his opponent's leg, quickly retaliating even through the shock and pain of a kick to the head. She didn't even have time to lower her foot before he moved, wrapping his hands firmly around her calf.

Kotohime's eyes widened a moment before Zaku pulled, unbalancing the woman and dragging her off her feet. She fell on her back, and her head smacked into the dust and dirt. He sprang onto her, pinning the woman to the ground beneath him.

"It's over," he grunted, a bead of sweat dripping from his temple. His hands shook infinitesimally, and he grit his teeth. His knees dug into Kotohime's waist, his pelvis bearing down on her abdomen.

The look of grim anticipation on the woman's face, and the soft curves of her body, lying there on the ground underneath him, filled Zaku with a cold thrill. He licked his lips, seeing the flush of exertion, the sheen of sweat which spread over her exposed skin. Droplets of moisture glistened in the kunoichi's cleavage.

He felt himself stir and press into her belly, excited in a very basic and visceral way. Adrenaline surged through his body, and his shoulders heaved with labored breaths. It had been a short fight, if intense, and yet his stamina seemed to be flagging more than it ought to have.

Iron glinted in the light of a burning building behind him. He could hear the ring of steel and thumping of fists as Dosu and Paki fought their own opponents.

Pupils dilated, and breathing hitched. His heart beat a tattoo against his ribcage.

Fingers curled around the handle of a kunai.

Zaku moved in for the kill.

"It's over," he muttered. Aiming the tip of the weapon for his opponent's neck, he plunged the blade downward.

 _Thup_.

His hand jerked to the side, thrusting the kunai harmlessly into the dirt.

Kotohime smiled. "A maiden's black hair binds you," she supplied, a glimmer of something frightful in her glance. "You can't escape it."

Zaku's eyes widened, and he looked down at his hand. He saw hair, long and silky ebon tresses, soft to the touch yet strong and resilient. It wrapped around his wrist, his forearm. His other hand jerked back, now, and he felt his head pulled forward like a puppet on strings.

"Wha—?!" he gaped, starting to exclaim his surprise and confusion before he was muffled, his voice silenced by the valley of Kotohime's cleavage. Pale flesh filled his vision, light blocked off by his own head and her two ample breasts. He gagged, finding his air suddenly restricted.

It smelled of lilac, faintly, and her sweat trickled over his lips, a salty tang. He could feel her hair binding his body, wrapping around him and pinning him against her.

Despite himself, a growing erection dug into the woman's belly.

"This will be a fitting end for you, cherry boy," Kotohime purred. "I don't usually like using tactics as forward as this, but you've pushed me to this extreme. You have no one but yourself to blame for this humiliating demise."

Zaku felt a cool hand slip up the back of his shirt, sending shivers through his spine. Sharp nails clawed at his back, scraping bare skin, digging in deep and drawing warm rivulets of blood.

His world began to tilt.

"You're suffocating, aren't you?" she whispered silkily, raking slim fingers over his shoulder bone. "Indeed, I imagine there's not much air for you to breathe in there. I wonder how long it will be before you asphyxiate?"

Her free hand tugged at his trousers, inching them down. She grabbed his rear and squeezed, digging her fingernails in there as well. Knowingly, she pressed his body down on hers, flexing her abdomen against his groin.

If he could see her face, he would have beheld her features twisted in sadistic, schadenfreudian amusement.

Zaku hissed and struggled against Kotohime's hold, but it was to no avail. He arched his back and thrashed from side to side, or at least tried to. But taut as a ship's moorings, her raven locks held firm with little leeway and aught more room than a few centimeters this way or that for him to move. Nowhere near enough to have a chance at snapping his way out of these restraints with brute force.

He tried to move one of his hands. The right was held fast to the ground, still grasping the kunai with which he'd intended to end his foe's life. And his left hand was pinioned to his side, the palm facing in toward his thigh. Neither one could be forced from its position.

Zaku flexed and tried to shift his left arm, attempting to rotate his wrist and aim his wind cutter away from his body. He couldn't form handseals like this, but if he built up the chakra in his arm he could probably brute force a crude zankuuha. With that he could either blast through a portion of the hair binding him, or maybe blow out a chunk of his captor's torso.

It was getting difficult to focus, though. The air in his lungs was hot and stale, mostly carbon dioxide. He felt dizzy, enfeebled.

Still, he almost had a bit of progress on that front, nearly managed to twist his left hand to aim away from himself, until he felt one of his captor's hands clasp it by the wrist and pin it back to his side. She'd seen his zankuukyokuha once already, and it seemed she was smart enough to guess that he might be able to pull off something similar if given the opportunity.

 _Shit... this is embarrassing,_ Zaku thought with a grimace, starting to feel lightheaded. The air he breathed was stale, humid and smelling of Kotohime's sweaty musk. It burned in his chest. _I really don't wanna die in a position like this. She's mocking me, dammit...!_

He snarled, lips curling back. Angrily, futilely he howled his frustration into Kotohime's bosom, his mouth opening wide. He thrashed vainly, wasting his ebbing strength on this pointless act. Even in the blackness he could dimly tell that his vision was starting to blur. A growing itch and pricking in his lungs betrayed the progression of slow but certain asphyxiation.

He gnashed his teeth, feeling a hot pressure behind his eyes. Again, he opened his mouth wide, a muffled wail of anger vibrating against Kotohime's sternum. His face pressed into her bosom, and her sweat dripped into his mouth.

Furiously, he once more gnashed his teeth, snapping his jaws shut for lack of any other way to communicate his frustration. Incisors closed over soft tissue. Canines dug into unprotected flesh.

Kotohime gasped, her breath hitching. Zaku tasted blood.

Despite growing steadily weaker, his consciousness gradually fading, it entered his perception that there was still a chance. Kotohime tensed beneath him, hissing a pained curse, and the grip of her hair slackened ever so slightly.

He reared his head back, and saw light. He smelled grime and soot and ash, and greedily he gulped down fresh air. Dizzy but emboldened, he wrenched his arms free.

Kotohime tore the kunai from Zaku's grip and shoved him off of her, releasing him from his follicular bondage. Gasping and grunting, she pushed herself back up onto her feet.

"Sss... damn, you clever brat," she hissed, sounding almost impressed. "Shit, that _hurts_."

She laid a hand on her wounded breast, and blood seeped between fingers. Hissing, she brandished the kunai snatched from Zaku and squared her stance. She was trembling slightly, her breathing heavy and a touch erratic.

Zaku struggled into a standing position, still weak and out of sorts from his near suffocation. Vision swam, and he staggered, listing a little ways to and fro.

"It was... easy, you stupid bitch..." he grunted, slowly shaking his head. "That was a dumbass attack. Y'left yourself wide open... completely undefended."

Kotohime smiled crookedly. "You have guts, I'll give you that..." she mused, wiping a bloodied hand off on her skirt. "I'm honestly impressed. Only one other person has ever broken out of that hold... and that was by using a kekkei genkai."

"Your other opponents must not have had any fight in them at all, then," Zaku sneered. "That, or they enjoyed it too much to seriously try to escape."

He squared his shoulders, before taking a deep breath and steadying himself. His hands were poised less than half a foot apart. Kotohime smirked and drew a handful of shuriken from the pouch on her thigh, fluidly shifting into a throwing stance.

"And you didn't?"

"Would've been better if I'd had a little more breathing room."

With that quip, Zaku clasped his hands into a snake sneal. At the same moment, Kotohime flicked the shuriken at him, pushing him to sidestep. He maintained his concentration, this level of distraction a mere pittance compared to his training. She tossed the kunai, next, as Zaku's hands formed the sign of the hare.

"Cheeky punk," Kotohime murmured, darting forward.

She drew a kunai of her own, closing the relatively short distance between herself and Zaku in no time and all. She stabbed at his hands, and he sidestepped, moving into the next seal even as she spun and swiped the blade at his face. The dagger nicked his cheek.

Horse.

Kotohime slashed again, and though Zaku backpedaled quickly she still managed to score a shallow cut on his forearm. And she followed up with a blindingly fast thrust, aiming to slip the blade between his ribs. He ducked and strafed to the left, and the kunai drove instead into his right shoulder.

He jerked and swore at the wound, but managed to maintain enough focus to form the last seal and concentrate his chakra.

Boar.

Kotohime yanked the blade out of his shoulder with a wet _shlick_ and made to slash his neck, but Zaku sprang aside. She was appreciably faster than him at this point in the fight, retaining more of her stamina and tiring less quickly, but a blast of air from his right hand, aimed at the ground, made up the difference and gave him enough added thrust to outpace the knife and dodge this attack.

Her blade struck only air, and Kotohime overbalanced infinitesimally. She committed a little more to the stroke than was prudent, knowing that she was tiring out, and choosing to take a chance in the hope of decisively finishing this combat. A respectable choice in its own right, but one that left an opening in her stance when the attack missed.

Zaku was in the perfect position to capitalize on this.

Digging his feet into the dirt and swinging his left arm up, he leveled an open palm at his opponent's center of mass. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, his senses heightening in a moment of extreme tension.

With a grim smirk, he poured out a sizable portion of chakra, near enough to his opponent to be absolutely sure of hitting.

" _ZANKUUHA!_ "

It struck square on her side. Slicing airwaves tore at her clothes and the skin beneath, bloodying her flank. Blunt, concussive force lifted her up off her feet, and like a man-sized ragdoll she was unceremoniously flung twenty feet through the air, straight into the side of a condemned, dilapidated shack.

The hovel shuddered from the violence of impact, and Kotohime slid limply down the wall. The wound in her side left a trail of blood to wet the crusted filth and dust. She landed on the ground in a boneless heap, half naked and pale from blood loss, but still breathing... albeit weakly and erratically.

Zaku's own breaths came heavy and labored. His vision blurred a little bit at the edges, and he shook his head in an attempt to clear it.

 _Poison... huh? Feels like a mild paralytic, or something similar..._ he thought. _She probably coated her fingernails in the stuff... thinking to incapacitate me and finish it at her leisure, I'll bet._

Rarely had he felt more grateful for that hellish poison-resistance training they'd had to suffer through back in the academy.

"I... frigging _hate_ people like you..." Zaku muttered, taking a step towards Kotohime's stunned and battered form. "...Tch. Must've thought you were _so damn clever_ , trying to kill me with those big, stupid tits..."

He swayed from side to side, crossing the distance between himself and Kotohime in a brisk pace. A hand slipped into his kunai pouch, and he drew another knife.

She met his gaze, battered and beaten. A thin stripe of blood trickled down from her hairline, covering her right eye. One of her arms protruded from the shoulder at an unnatural angle – likely dislocated – and the other arm was pierced nastily through by a large and jagged splinter.

"...it's funny..." she murmured. "...how a ninja serving someone like Orochimaru... would have any compunctions against underhanded tricks..." She gave him a wan smile. "Heh... Did you know? They say that truly high level shinobi... can read their opponent's heart... simply by trading blows."

Zaku scoffed. "I'll believe that when I see it," he said. "But the only thing I see in front of me, right now, is a half-assed kunoichi from a mediocre clan."

Kotohime chortled weakly. Flecks of blood colored her lips.

"Maybe, maybe..." she whispered. "But I think I caught a glimpse of it while fighting you, all the same..." A rueful smile curved her mouth. "...in spite of everything... you're really not a bad kid, are you? Just misguided... and used... by that Orochimaru."

Eyes flashed. Fingers tightly gripped the kunai's handle, knuckles going white.

Zaku's expression turned livid.

"You don't know ANYTHING!" he snapped, roaring and lashing out. "YOU DAMNED, STUPID...!"

The kunai fell in a swift and furious arc, descending at a blinding speed.

Cold iron thrust all at once through soft, yielding flesh, jarring as it glanced off of bone. Ruddy skin went pale beneath a coat of spilt lifeblood.

Kotohime's eyes went wide in shock, and she gasped.

Blood dripped to the ground.

Sasame Fuuma grimaced and stumbled. She stood on trembling legs before Kotohime, her kinswoman.

Zaku's kunai stabbed through her hand, dripping Sasame's blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Actually had most of this typed up over a week ago, but my monitor went unexpectedly to crap last Saturday and I only got a replacement the day before yesterday. So, yeah.
> 
> Also, "marshmallow hell no jutsu".
> 
> I regret nothing.
> 
> Except maybe a lack of plot and character concepts and ability to devise a sufficiently coherent setting in which I could write an original story of my own. But maybe someday... haha.
> 
> Updated: 5-17-15
> 
> TTFN and R&R!
> 
> – — ❤


	9. Sasame's Offer

Blood dripped to the ground.

Sasame Fuuma grimaced and stumbled. She stood on trembling legs before Kotohime, her kinswoman.

Zaku's kunai stabbed through her hand, dripping Sasame's blood.

Tears pricked at her eyes and trickled down splotchy cheeks.

"Please... stop this," she whispered, shuddering miserably and meeting Zaku's eyes. "Don't hurt her. Please..."

She sniffled, a pained and piteous whimper.

"Sasame...?" Kotohime gasped. "No, what are you doing?! This kid's too far above your level! You're not strong enough to...!"

"I know," Sasame whispered, trembling. "I can't fight. I'm not strong like you, or Kagerou-sama, or Arashi-niichan. I'm clumsy and uncoordinated... weak and unfit as a ninja. I can't fight. However... I can't stand by and watch you die, either."

She let her arms fall to her side. The kunai was wrenched from her palm, and she hissed, shaking and unsteadily wrapping a bandage around her wounded hand. Zaku stared with narrowed eyes and a stony expression, but he stood motionless, as if fixed to the spot.

A flicker of confusion crossed his face.

Sasame looked into his eyes, and she raised her unwounded hand to gingerly, hesitantly undo the topmost clasp on her blouse. She gulped, face reddening, but her expression bore the slightest touch of steely resolve.

"No..." she whispered, moving her fingers to the next clasp, exposing a little more of her creamy skin. "I may have little talent as a ninja, but as a woman... there is still one more thing I can do."

Blushing, she undid two more clasps. Her shirt was open to below her sternum, now, and Zaku could clearly see the sarashi wrappings which constricted the swell of her chest, a bit of cleavage exposed by the bandages.

Sasame met Zaku's eyes. She gulped, swallowing nervously, but her expression was firmly resolute. Her fingers trembled, but she continued to undress.

Zaku watched bemusedly. Narrowing his eyes, he flitted his glance over the ginger's bared flesh.

"What are you suggesting?" he said. "If you're trying to seduce me, I'll have you know that this bitch beat you to it." He gave Kotohime's prone form a soft kick, hardly more than a nudge. "And she _still_ lost. Your tricks won't work on me."

Sasame gave him a weak, bitter smile. Her shirt was lying on the road, and she gingerly inched her pants down her legs.

"It's not a trick," she said. "It's an offer. A bargain."

She stepped out of her pants, then began to unwrap her sarashi. Soft mounds were slowly bared, inch by inch. Smooth skin danced over lean muscles. Blushing, she swallowed again and dropped the bandages to join the rest of her clothes.

Sasame held out her arms to show that she held no weapons. She stepped away from her clothes, her weapons, bowing her head and maintaining a neutral, nonthreatening posture.

"In exchange for sparing my cousin's life..." she whispered, standing naked in the firelight. "...I will give you my body."

For a moment, Zaku stared at Sasame.

Then he scoffed and turned his back on her. " _Naïve,_ " he muttered. "It's a shame that pretty face had to be wasted on such a fool. You don't know anything about how the world works, do you?"

His form blurred, and Sasame recoiled, struck by a sudden blow faster than she could possibly react, knocked flat on her back. A hand closed over her throat, grasping it, pinning her to the ground.

Fingers tightened, squeezed. It didn't cut off her windpipe, or significantly restrict her flow of air, but the primal terror which blossomed in the pit of her stomach was more than enough to make it feel like she was dying.

Blind, unthinking panic. Sasame's eyes widened, even as she gagged. Tears welled up, hot and painful.

She met Zaku's gaze, stony and dispassionate.

"Tell me something, dumbass..." he growled, kneeling atop Sasame's frame. "If you're really as weak as you say, then what's to stop me from just having my way with you and keeping your cousin?" He scoffed. "Give me your body? A bargain? A _trade?_ **Please**. That would only mean something if you actually had the power to keep me from taking it in the first place."

Zaku leaned his head in close, sneering, and laid a free hand on Sasame's chest. _Squish_. He curled his fingers over the pert, milky globe; the rim of his pipe brushed her nipple.

Sasame gasped, and infinitesimally Zaku tightened his hold on her neck.

He smiled. It was cold and mirthless.

"Y'see?" he whispered. "I could rape you right now, right here, and there's not a damn thing you could do about it. Because you're weak, and I'm not. _That_ is how the world works."

Sasame looked up at him with fear in her eyes, a true and grim horror of dawning revelation. He saw the beginnings of despair take root in her body language, a slumping and slacking of defeat, limply surrendering. The light went out in her eyes as she finally started to grasp the reality of her situation.

With a snort, Zaku let go of her and stood back up. He squinted.

"There. Do you get it, now?" he said. "If you want your friend to go free, then stand up and fight. Only a fool relies on things like goodwill or fairness. If you gave any pride as a shinobi, you'll leave now and come back to kill me and my friends in our sleep."

He laughed.

"Though of course, we'll be expecting that," he added. "And we WILL kill you if you can't kill us first."

For a second time, he turned his back on her. Stepping away, Zaku headed back to Kotohime's bruised, bloodied, insensate form.

Numbly, staring uncomprehendingly at his back, Sasame pushed herself up off of the ground.

"Of course," Zaku said after a moment, "You _could_ come with us of your own free will. It wouldn't buy your friend's freedom, and you'd be as much a prisoner as she is, but it would let you stay with her. And who knows? You might even get to see your _'Arashi-niichan'_ again."

Zaku scooped Kotohime up off of the ground, slinging her over his shoulder with a grunt of considerable effort. He started to walk away, before pausing and turning to look at Sasame one last time. He glanced amusedly at her naked body.

"Oh, and one more thing?" he added, lazily smirking. "I'm not interested in scrawny weaklings. Either get stronger, or get a real figure. Maybe _then_ your offer might actually be worth something."

Sasame blushed. Abashed and newly aware of his glance, she covered herself with her arms.

"Ahh, I'm surprised..." she whispered softly to herself, averting her eyes from Zaku. "This guy helped practically destroy my clan... and yet... I wonder, why doesn't he seem like a bad person...?"

Zaku inclined his head.

"Mm? What was that?"

"Nothing," Sasame answered, smiling a little in spite of herself. "No, it's nothing, just... wait for me, will you?"

"You have two minutes," Zaku bluntly replied. "After that, I'm dragging you with regardless of what you're wearing... or _not_ wearing."

With a squeak, Sasame immediately started tossing her clothes back on.

* * *

"So this was a waste of time, after all. Most of 'em are dead now."

Paki flicked a lock of hair over her shoulder, sifting boredly through the ashes of the Fuuma hideout. Behind her lay the dessicated corpse of her opponent, a gruesome sight fit to turn even the hardiest stomach. The acrid, overpowering stench of burnt flesh filled the air, bitter and pervasive.

"Perhaps... but then, that simply means we have made an example of them. It will serve as a warning to those who might try and defy Orochimaru-sama in the future."

Dosu was crouching low, bent nearly double with an ear pressed to the ground. His face, mostly covered by bandages, was as unreadable as ever.

"Do you think it'll work, then? Cowing dissenters and all that."

"Yes. There will always be reckless fools in this world, but more prudent souls will think twice."

Paki paused and looked over her shoulder to see Zaku, who was half carrying, half dragging an injured and unconscious woman. She recognized this individual as Kotohime, one of the higher ranking members of the Fuuma clan.

She smirked, seeing the woman's tattered clothes. She then noticed a ginger lass following after Zaku, her expression conflicted. Defeated yet hopeful, with maybe a hint of admiration directed at Zaku's back.

"You didn't kill her," Paki shrewdly observed, addressing Zaku. "Or her little friend. Spoils of war, then?"

"This wasn't a war," Zaku said tersely. His hand was on Kotohime's thigh as he carried her.

"And that didn't answer my question," Paki replied. She smirked. "Not that I _mind_. Those two are pretty cute, after all."

"Are they prisoners or defectors?" was all that Dosu felt the need to contribute, terse and pragmatic as he was.

"This one's a prisoner," Zaku said, patting Kotohime. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at Sasame. "This one decided to come along on her own. Dunno if I'd call her a _defector_ , but..."

Paki laughed.

"My, my, Zaku-chan! You're building up quite a list of conquests, aren't you?" She sneered, waggling her eyebrows. "Was ginger there willing, or did you have to rape her?"

Zaku's face reddened, and he glowered at the verdette.

Sasame blushed hotly, and refused to meet anyone's eyes.

Dosu lightly scoffed.

"It doesn't matter what he does with them, so long as he carries out his mission," he said dismissively. "They're alive. Orochimaru-sama can make use of them. Any other details are wholly irrelevant."

"Sure, but that doesn't mean I'm not allowed to be _curious_ ," Paki said. She winked, smirking dangerously. "After all, since I've clearly won our little contest... it will be _very_ relevant to my interests whether or not Zaku-chan is a virgin."

Dosu gave her a mildly annoyed look. Zaku rolled his eyes.

"I'm not so sure you won, actually..." he muttered. "It didn't sound like there were all that many people in the building."

"Hm?" Paki arched an eyebrow. "There weren't so few that _you_ would have beaten me, Zaku. Did you even get _any_ kills?"

He shrugged.

"I wasn't talking about myself," he said. "Kin got an awful lot of guys in a pretty nasty trap, back by the tea shop."

"Kin?" Paki frowned. "Well, that's no fun. That girl is a complete stick in the mud."

"You mean she's not a total degenerate like you," Zaku snarked.

"Exactly!" Paki said. "She's been so _boring_ , ever since Tayuya-sempai joined the Sound Four."

"Only that long?" Zaku snorted. "She's been boring since the day I met her."

There was a moment of silence.

Knuckles crashed into the back of Zaku's head.

"I _have_ , have I?" came the voice of Kin Tsuchi, who was standing next to a surprised Sasame and brandishing a clenched fist. "Hmph. Sorry for being **boring**."

Zaku swore and rubbed the back of his head with a free hand.

"Dammit..." he muttered. "You crazy bitch."

Kin gave him the stink-eye.

"Toshizo's dead, by the way." She said this blandly, off-handed and dismissive, like she was merely commenting on the weather. She pulled out a spool of Toshizo's razor wire and turned it over in her hand. "The guy with the sword got a lucky swing in and took off his head."

Paki pouted.

"Really? That's a shame," she said. "I _liked_ him. He was a real character."

"Bah. He was a creep," Zaku scoffed. He shifted Kotohime over his shoulder. "I won't miss the bastard."

Sasame frowned at this, and looked at Zaku quizzically.

"Did you destroy the body?" Dosu said this while looking expectantly at Kin. He gave no other reaction to the news of their teammate's untimely demise.

"Of course I did," Kin said, waving a hand flippantly. "It was a pain finishing the fight without him, but there weren't very many left by that point. Once the boss went down, the rest scattered. Weren't more than two or three survivors."

"You let them escape?"

"Setting an example only works if some people live to spread the word of your wrath."

"Fair enough." Dosu nodded. "Did you retrieve any identification from Toshizo's corpse before destroying it, then?"

"Of course I did," Kin replied. "I stripped him of his supplies and sealed his head into a storage scroll."

She pulled out a small scroll no larger than the spool of wire and tossed it in the air.

It flipped once before landing back in her hand.

"Well, looks like our mission was a success," said Zaku, heaving and laying Kotohime on the ground at his feet. He stretched and rolled his shoulders, gingerly massaging his wrists. The joints audibly popped and cracked.

Paki looked at Kin.

"Zaku-chan says he thinks you won our bet," she commented. "It seems he has a lot of faith in you, that boy." She winked.

Kin colored, and Zaku shot Paki a black look.

"I'm sure I did win," she said haughtily. "But how about _you?_ "

Paki smirked. "I know I beat Zaku, at least. So even if _you've_ beaten me, I still get to extract payment from him."

"You..." Kin narrowed her eyes, glaring at Paki.

A tense silence fell over the group. Sasame kept close to Zaku, visibly anxious. Zaku, in turn, looked disinterestedly at the two girls, kneeling down over Kotohime.

"Come on," Dosu interjected. "We're done here. You can settle this once we get home."

Kin crossed her arms over her chest.

Paki shrugged and smiled knowingly.

"If you say so, Dosu," the verdette quipped. "I've already tallied my kills."

"So have I," Kin said, bristling.

Zaku sighed and picked Kotohime back up.

"Hmph," he grunted. "I don't mind carrying this woman, but do we have any restraints for her and Sasame?"

Dosu nodded, and produced a small supply scroll. He tossed it to Zaku.

"Here," he said. "Tie them up, if you have to. Then we'll set out."

Zaku nodded and unfurled the scroll.

"Gotcha," he said. "It'll only take a minute."

Dosu cocked his head and fixed Zaku with a penetrating glance.

"Yes," he said. "See that it does."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Haha, I nearly forgot about this fic for a while there... oy, yeesh. Well, here's the next chapter.
> 
> Updated: 7-10-15
> 
> TTFN and R&R!
> 
> – — ❤


	10. Homecoming

"Do you really not miss him?" Sasame whispered this to Zaku, walking behind him with her arms cuffed behind her back. A paper talisman adhered to her chest, the root kanji for _shibaru_ written on it in stylized calligraphy.

Zaku cocked his head and looked at the younger of his two captives. He held two sturdy leads in his hand, fine but strong cords affixed to collars around Sasame and Kotohime's necks. The raven haired woman walked beside her kinsman, trailing a little behind and looking a touch bleary still.

"Do I miss who?"

"Your teammate," Sasame said. She looked ahead at the backs of Dosu, Kin, and Paki. Then she met Zaku's eyes. "Toshizo. Wasn't that his name?"

"Oh. Him."

Zaku turned his head away, and they continued walking. For a moment, there was silence.

"He's dead," Sasame said. "Doesn't that bother you?"

"Should it?" Zaku replied, answering her question with another question. "We're ninja. We train, we go on missions, we fight. Sometimes some of us die in the process. That's just the way it works."

Sasame frowned.

"I think it's sad," she said.

"Then cry for yourself," Zaku grumbled. "Your family's dead. _We killed them_. Don't go trying to feel sorry for us."

" _You_ didn't kill them," Sasame said. She inclined her head to look askance at Kotohime. "Not even when you had the chance."

"Don't delude yourself," he growled. "I damn well _tried_ to kill them. I would have, too, if that bitch hadn't gotten in my way."

"Then why did you spare her?" she asked. "You made it very clear you weren't doing it for me."

Zaku went silent. He shot Sasame a dark look.

"She has nice tits. I decided she be more useful alive, with that ass of hers." He narrowed his eyes. "Is that what you want me to say?"

"No," Sasame said, blushing. "But I think you know that's not the real reason, either. You're surprisingly gentlemanly, in your own way..."

She smiled at him.

Kotohime watched the two of them interact, blinking slowly. Her lips quirked up at the corners.

There was a twinkle in her eyes.

* * *

After three hours of travel, the Sound ninja stopped for a brief rest. It was a only short reprieve, but they had been making good time so far, and wanted to keep it up. Mostly they used this pause as an opportunity to relieve themselves or partake in a meager repast of bitter but nutritionally dense food pills washed down with a few gulps of water.

Paki and Kin were filling their canteens at a stream close by, and Dosu was checking their progress against a small map, figuring out roughly where they were and mentally adjusting their route and schedule accordingly. Zaku had Kotohime and Sasame on leads, still, as he walked over to a nearby bush and unzipped his trousers.

Sasame blushed and looked away, inching away as far as she could in embarrassment. Kotohime stayed right by Zaku, though, and watched with a thoughtful expression as he pissed into the soil beneath the foliage.

He finished shortly and tucked it back away, zipping up. Kotohime's eyes lingered for a moment or two.

She looked down at the lead he held in his hand.

"Are you going to wash?" she asked him wryly.

"You sound awfully cheerful for a prisoner," Zaku said. "In Oto, there are people who'd beat you to death, or worse, for that kind of attitude."

"You mean being conversational?" she said, smirking.

"Being a _smart ass_ ," he retorted.

"You didn't mention anything like that when Sasame was talking." Kotohime smiled.

Zaku colored.

"M-Mind your own business!" he snapped.

"Isn't it my business?" she asked with a chortle. "If my cute little cousin is flirting with her captor, that is."

There was a pause at this statement.

Kin's voice had risen a little over by the stream. It sounded like she and Paki were having a heated discussion, though over what Zaku could not tell. Dosu was quietly muttering coordinates and various statistics under his breath.

Sasame was stock still and beet red behind them, standing as far away from Kotohime and Zaku as she physically could. If her hands weren't tied behind her back, she probably would have plugged her ears. She looked mortified.

Zaku snorted, at length, and gestured dismissively.

"She's not a captive, unlike you," he said. "She came willingly."

"Yet you tied her up all the same..." Kotohime smirked. "Are you just a fan of bondage, then?"

"Do you want a gag stuffed in your mouth?" he replied, scowling.

"How forward!" she laughed. "But I think I'll have to take a rain check. It looks like your friends are getting ready to go."

Zaku looked back over to his teammates, and he saw that this was indeed the case. Humming impatiently, he tugged on Kotohime and Sasame's leads.

"Hmph. Fine. Come on, then," he said. "We're going."

* * *

They reached the facility without any further incident. It took another half day of travel, and they took only one more break during that time, but within a day of all but destroying the main dissident faction of the Fuuma clan, Team Dosu was back in Otogakure.

Kotohime and Sasame were brought before the site chief as captives, and Kin gave the mission report. Paki and Zaku kept watch over the two Fuuma kunoichi, and Dosu patiently waited for the site chief to speak.

Ultimately, their mission was put down as a success, and the chief dismissed them with a gesture. The last thing he said to them was addressed to Zaku, who was given the credit for capturing Sasame and Kotohime.

_"For the time being, those two will be your responsibility."_

He did not ask if Zaku was okay with this assignment. He did not elaborate on the reasoning behind this decision. He was the highest authority in this facility, and his word was effectively law.

Zaku accepted this assignment. He had to. There was no choice in the matter on his end. He completed the missions he was given, or else.

That was it. He was, for the time being, the guard and warden of these two Fuuma kunoichi.

An odd system, to say the least, but that was what the site chief had decided.

Unlike most other ninja villages, Otogakure truly lived up to the _gakure_ in its name. Decentralized infrastructure housed in several far flung bases let Oto maintain a low profile even as it built up its forces, and a certain level of operational autonomy was afforded to these bases, permitting a fair deal of tactical flexibility.

Of course, there were downsides to this arrangement as well. Communication between different sites was usually slow and sometimes unreliable, and while the dispersed and isolated nature of bases made it effectively impossible to invade Otogakure in any kind of traditional sense, it also lent a certain fractious mentality to the village's shinobi. Ninja from one site were much less likely to identify or feel camaraderie with ninja from another site, which could make larger scale operations a headache to organize.

While all Sound shinobi served Orochimaru, the zeitgeist was more that of a collective of disparate city states tenuously united under the command of a powerful leader, rather than a single sociopolitical entity. If ordered to work together, they would, but there was little fraternity between them. Like a matryoshka doll, it was factions within factions, all held in place solely by the will of Lord Orochimaru.

Site Theta was the official designation of the facility where Zaku had been trained, where he lived and worked as an Oto ninja. It was a subterranean labratory and fortress that housed a portion of the Hidden Sound's forces, and in lieu of any higher authority present, the site chief ruled these shinobi with an iron fist.

He had been personally appointed to that position by Orochimaru himself, after all. So Zaku did as he was told. That was his mission.

* * *

In a dark room somewhere in Site Theta, two silhouetted figures were huddled together, speaking lowly and fiercely.

"Are you going to make use of this opportunity?" said one with the voice of a young woman. "Because if you don't, I will."

"I... I haven't decided yet," said the other, sounding like a girl of similar age to the first. "Give me a little more time to think it over."

"You told me to keep back until you'd taken what you wanted," the first replied in a low, dangerous whisper. "That was the price you extracted from me. But a woman's word is only as good as her patience, and mine is quickly running out."

The second girl pulled back from the first. Eyes glinted in the darkness, and she rose up in an imposing posture.

"I will kill you if you touch him," she said in a tone as cold as ice. "This isn't a mission. Don't put your life on the line unless it means something to you, personally. Unless you're willing to die for it..."

"You're too serious, babe. Way too stiff," the first laughed. "Are you saying it means something to _you?_ Because I'll kill you if you try to kill me. Do _you_ think it's worth dying over... Kin-chan?❤"

"... ... ..."

Silence.

A smirk.

"Well? If you can't put your money where your mouth is, then don't talk so big. You may have won our little bet... but only just. I'll give you three more days to decide what you want. After that, he plays my penalty game whether you've taken your turn or not."

"...don't worry, Paki." Kin turned to face the door. "You're right. I've made up my mind."

"Well, that's good to hear. And when do you plan to tell _him_ that?"

"Tonight," Kin said. She opened the door, casting light over her and Paki's forms. "And one more thing? To answer your other question... yes. Yes, I do."

Paki smiled.

"A pity," she said. "I think you and Tayuya-sempai would have made a cuter couple."

"She's not here anymore," Kin said, blushing. "But Zaku is."

"And that's good enough for you, is it?" Paki side-eyed the other girl.

"Good enough is already more than we deserve," Kin coolly answered, avoiding the question.

Wryly, Paki smiled.

"Hm... Maybe~"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I dunno, it's an update. And only two weeks after the previous one! That's an improvement.
> 
> Been binge-watching some One Piece lately. Episode 640, and I'm nearly at the point where the manga was when I forgot to keep reading it.
> 
> Updated: 7-24-15
> 
> TTFN and R&R!
> 
> – — ❤


	11. Goes the Spoils

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This fanfic depicts activities of an adult nature between characters who would be minors in the real world. The author of this fic does not endorse such things being done by minors in real life, and in fact strongly discourages minors from reading this, and also from participating in any and all such activities until they are at the age of majority/consent as defined in the laws or customs of their state or principality.
> 
> (in short, this chapter has a lemon)

Supervising Sasame and Kotohime was a tedious job, but not too difficult. Both were pretty compliant and readily followed Zaku's instructions, even if the elder of the pair was a bit of a smart alec and the younger was a little too passive. Zaku didn't have much trouble keeping them in line, partly because they rarely strayed.

As he was unable to take on any other missions or leave Site Theta for any length of time until the chief was satisfied that the girls wouldn't be trouble, having to keep an eye on the nearly all hours of the day, Zaku didn't have much to do besides train and rest. It was thankful, really, that while he had to keep Sasame and Kotohime in his sight the whole time, he was still able to practice his techniques and work on improving his stamina.

Live combat was best for gaining experience, and Zaku's last mission regarding the Fuuma Clan had given him a much-needed challenge. Fighting Kotohime had shown him his limits and weaknesses, and with little else to do for now besides train, Zaku was working to overcome them.

It wasn't the most _intensive_ training, because he still had to keep an eye on Sasame and Kotohime. He was at least able to spar with the girls in hand-to-hand combat, although they were forbidden from carrying weapons or practicing ninjutsu themselves until they had been proven either loyal or a nonthreat. So he got some practice in for himself, at least, particularly in regards to chakra control and nature transformation.

That aside, Zaku did not find the assignment totally unpleasant. While he wasn't inclined to abuse authority in such a way, the fact that he had to accompany the girls _everywhere_ did have its upsides. When they bathed or refreshed themselves, he had to go with. And when he went to sleep at night, he had to either do so down in the holding facilities, or keep them restrained in his room.

Desensitization to certain things was a fundamental part of shinobi training, but Zaku was not immune to everything. In particular, he had in the past and present alike demonstrated a pointed weakness for a few very specific things. His conditioning had not been perfect, and when it came to the female body...

...Well, calling him a _pervert_ would be stretching it, but he was not immune to feminine wiles, no matter how hard he tried to be. Kotohime was well aware of this, and Sasame was not oblivious either. Kin and Paki also knew of his weakness, and the latter in particular never hesitated to take advantage of it

So much so that it genuinely bemused Zaku when the girl did not immediately start teasing him, once they had finished the mission, with what sort of payment she would extract in regards to the results of their bet. Days passed after the mission until a week had gone by, and while he ran across her a fair share of times she did not once say anything.

He knew she hadn't forgotten. He could see the gleam in her eyes. But there was also something holding her back. Zaku could not imagine what would be capable of restraining that deviant, but clearly there was _something_.

Ultimately, between his wondering at Paki's procrastination, and the time spent training or supervising Kotohime and Sasame, Zaku barely even remembered that Paki was not the only one to whom he'd lost that bet.

Not until the day Kin came forward and told him her price.

* * *

"Tonight, Zaku."

Kin walked into the dimly lit room where Zaku had been training. She took a moment to look askance at Kotohime and Sasame, who were in the middle of putting the targets back up. Not an easy task, since the kunoichi were chained together at the ankle, but they managed obediently.

The better they could follow the directions their minder gave them, the sooner they were likely to be accepted as ninja of the village. Otogakure was continuously growing, and new blood was always welcome, but it was important to be cautious.

Ninja who could swallow their pride and suffer through the indignity of probation were far more valuable than hotheads who refused to compromise, if nothing else.

"Tonight what?" said Zaku quizzically, looking at Kin. He kept an eye on the two Fuuma.

"Tonight is the night I claim my prize," Kin answered resolutely, staring him down. "I've put it off this long out of hesitation, since you can't leave those girls alone until the chief relieves you of your present assignment... but Paki's impatient, and I have no intention of letting her get to you first."

"In what way?" Zaku narrowed his eyes and straightened his posture, crossing his arms over his chest. "I have a good idea what _she_ might want from me... but what would that have to do with you?"

Kin glared at him, and her cheeks reddened faintly. Her composure, which she had obviously put considerable effort into solidifying, visibly faltered for a few seconds.

"Are you really that oblivious, Zaku...?" she muttered darkly. "You might have been Tayuya-sempai's favorite, and I might have resented you for that in the past... but I get it, now. I can see what it was she liked about you."

Zaku went silent. He looked sidelong at Sasame and Kotohime. The two appeared to be held in rapt attention by these developments, watching intently and smiling or blushing.

Turning his head, he met Kin's eyes.

"You're propositioning me."

She smiled. "Yes, I suppose I am, in a sense. Except you don't have a choice in the matter."

"Is this what you were planning to ask me for from the start?"

"What price would you have asked of Paki, if you had won?" she rejoined. "Or from me, if I had wagered the same stakes as you two?"

Zaku couldn't help but laugh a little, his cheeks darkening.

"I could lie," he said, "but I won't. Yeah, I probably would have asked for something similar."

Kin's cheeks colored a tad more, and she looked down at her feet.

"Really...? Ah, it's funny," she murmured, blushing. "I thought I'd be more annoyed at a response like that, but hearing it straight from your mouth... it actually makes me kind of happy."

Zaku smirked and cocked his head. His face was also rather red, and he felt quite giddy besides. "So... tonight, was it?" he said after a pregnant pause.

"Yes, tonight," Kin said. "I'd originally planned to ask you to come to my room, but..." She gave a pointed look at Kotohime and Sasame. "...I think I'll meet you in yours, instead, considering certain matters."

"It doesn't bother you as long as they're not in _your_ room?" Zaku mused, looking a touch cocky.

"Pretty much," Kin said, shrugging to cover up her further deepening blush.

Zaku laughed in spite of himself.

* * *

It was wonderfully surreal, in a way. Lying on his futon with Kin, naked, their bodies pressing anxiously and awkwardly together. Sweat dripped down their forms in the half-light, and their skin smacked quietly but audibly. She was panting atop him, softly gasping and digging her nails into his biceps as he bucked his hips.

Zaku was utterly absorbed in the sensations of her body, in the feel of Kin's form against him. Breasts, small and perky, bobbed infinitesimally overhead. Kin was crouching over his groin, her flower perfectly visible as it took in the modest length of his manhood, and she rocked her hips to and fro in a clumsy, greedy rhythm.

He stared at her, unable to see anything else as his erection was kneaded by the tightly clamping walls of her sex. He drank in the sight of her nakedness, fascinated, enraptured, groaning happily as he thrust now and again into her.

"Faster..." she'd tell him once or twice. "C'mon, Zaku. I need to feel it...!"

Her voice was somewhere between a whine and a groan as she guided him, trying to elucidate her desires in a way he would understand. Both of them were virgins, but Kin seemed to have a better idea of what to actually do. She'd done her research, so to speak.

"Don't just lie there, darn it... ungh, yes! Push, move! Ohhh, yes, that's right...!"

Zaku followed her lead, scarcely able to think coherently, lost as he was in the marvels of intercourse. It felt so good that he could hardly see straight, and his limbs seized up as his body leaped beneath Kin.

Eventually he was able to match her rhythm, and after that she too lost all powers of rational thought. Their moans filled his room, along with the sound of their genders smacking together again and again. Zaku and Kin had sex on his futon, clumsily but fervently fucking.

"Augh, shit..." Zaku hissed, brusquely squeezing Kin's flexing thighs as she thrust herself down on him. "I feel... ahh, I feel so...!"

"Yes... yes... yes!" Kin gasped, her voice rising in pitch. She bucked and ground, thrashing and throwing her head. Ebon locks flipped and fluttered in the air with her movements. "Yes, yes! Zaku, ohhh! That's it...! Yes!"

He bucked his hips, pumping up and down with a singleminded ferocity. She rocked her waist in time with his motions, Zaku now unconsciously setting the pace, grinding herself awkwardly but zealously on his bone.

They cried out at the peak, shouting one another's names all at once. They came, near enough to simultaneously.

All while Sasame and Kotohime watched.

* * *

Paki smiled to herself, standing outside the door to Zaku's room. She leaned her back against the wall, eyes closed, listening to the sounds inside.

"About time you made your move..." she said to no one in particular. "He's not particularly my type, but I was getting tired of waiting for you to act."

With twinkling eyes and a vivid imagination, Paki took in the muffled sounds of Zaku and Kin. She crossed her arms over her chest and nodded absently. Her smile widened into a shit eating grin, and her eyes flashed with a dangerous level of amusement.

"Those two must be in there," she idly surmised, "Zaku-chan's little war brides. Probably tied up and forced to watch." A quiet chuckle. "Heehee~ Talk about kinky!"

Patiently she stood there, listening to the sounds of their... not _love making_ , no, that would be too romantic a way to put it. Even if there were elements of fondness or infatuation to what was going on in there, Kin and Zaku's tryst here was hardly a matter of _**love**_.

Whatever Kin might say about how seriously she took it, Paki was sure there was nothing more than hunger and convenience behind the other girl's motivation. Casual intercourse was not discouraged among Oto ninja, with only the basic rules of preventative measures against venereal disease being enforced.

It was just a way to blow off steam and have some fun, and it was one of the few recreations that even the lowest ranked ninja could partake in, provided they could find a partner. And standards in Site Theta tended to run pretty low, to the extent that a sizable fraction of its armed forces would consider even a pulse merely optional.

So Paki was naturally disbelieving of Kin's claims of romantic motivation. Maybe some people had to tell themselves it was a matter of love, but that wasn't how Paki saw it.

There was no such thing as love.

She would be the first to tell you that.

Paki's smile faltered, and it became a frown as her thoughts trailed off. Casting a glance downward, she bit her lip and squeezed her arms tighter to her chest.

"' _It doesn't mean anything...'_ " she whispered. " _'I just do it because it feels good.'_ "

Grimacing, she shook her head before slumped to the floor, her back sliding down the wall.

"It doesn't mean anything."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Not a long chapter, but it does have the (possibly? by some of you, at least) long-awaited first lemon. Also hints at some sort of pathos or underlying issues for Paki, but she's an OC so surely she won't be getting any significant character development.
> 
> Honestly, though, I think half the reason I offed Toshizo when I did (although it also served a minor narrative purpose) was to minimize the temptation to flesh out the OCs too much. Still undecided on what I'll do with Paki, however.
> 
> Updated: 8-7-15
> 
> TTFN and R&R!
> 
> – — ❤


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